Planned strike action by some theatre staff at five hospitals on Tuesday and Wednesday has been cancelled following “positive talks” around pay, trade union Fórsa has said.
Perfusionists operate the machinery that performs the function of a patient’s heart and lungs during some surgeries and are key staff for certain procedures.
About 25 perfusionists based at St James’s, the Mater, Crumlin (CHI), Cork University Hospital and Galway University Hospital were to be involved in the Fórsa-organised stoppage.
The dispute centres on a claim for the restoration of pay parity with a larger group of workers, medical scientists, which the union says was broken two years ago.
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The pay of perfusionists was traditionally linked to that of the roughly 2,000 medical scientists working in the health service – an arrangement that dated back to about 1960 – and had been acknowledged in much more recent collective agreements.
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When the medical scientists won a case for parity with biochemists, however, the resulting 2024 pay increase was not passed on to the perfusionists.
In a recent Labour Court hearing, the Health Service Executive acknowledged the historical link but said it had been severed by the report that had recommended the increase for the medical scientists.
It also argued that the claim was cost-increasing, which is prohibited under the public service agreement.
The perfusionists last month took strike action in response to the dispute over pay and were due to have another two-day strike action this week.
However, in a statement on Monday evening, Fórsa confirmed the perfusionists had suspended their industrial action following positive talks with the HSE.
The union said these workers will now be paid at the appropriate level for their profession.
“Fórsa welcomes the HSE’s confirmation that they will pay perfusionists at the correct grade, retrospective to January 2024,” said Fórsa official Ryan McKinney.
“As a result, we have withdrawn industrial action and perfusionists will work as normal over the coming days. Our members showed their collective strength and determination by taking co-ordinated industrial action, confident in the knowledge that they were supported by their union.”
