Simon Harris was hit with a vote of no confidence from medical consultants just days before the Budget.
The vote was passed unanimously on Saturday night in Dublin by the council of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) at an emergency meeting.
Consultants said the Health Minister lacks the “authority, understanding and inclination” to deliver quality hospital care.
The meeting was called due to consultant concerns over patient safety and the deteriorating conditions across the country’s acute hospitals, the Irish Mirror reports.
Record numbers of patients being treated on trolleys and on waiting lists, as well as elderly patients waiting in emergency departments for further care, were three of the top concerns that led to the vote by the council of the IHCA, which has 3,000 consultant members.
In July, the number of patients waiting to see a hospital consultant reached more than 565,000, as over 500 permanent consultant posts remain empty or only temporarily filled across the country.
Since May 2016, when Mr Harris came into office, the number of patients treated on trolleys has increased by 36%, while the number of people on outpatient waiting lists has increased by 37% to 153,914, according to the IHCA.
This comes on foot of recent figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association, which show that September 2019 is the worst September for overcrowding on record.
A shocking 10,641 patients went without a bed in Irish hospitals in September, the worst month of 2019 so far, according to the INMO. This is double the number of people on trolleys ten years ago.
IHCA president Dr Donal O’Hanlon said Mr Harris has become “deaf” to the suffering of patients.
Dr O’Hanlon said: “Hospital consultants across our acute public hospitals no longer have confidence in Minister Harris.
“We do not believe that he has the authority, understanding, inclination or experience to deliver timely, quality hospital care for patients. He has become increasingly complacent and deaf to the suffering of patients across Ireland.
“Ensuring all patients can access timely, quality hospital care is a challenge, hospital consultants working on wards and caring for patients know and live it each day. But it’s not an excuse for doing nothing.”
O’Hanlon added: “Consultants can no longer support a Minister who is shirking his responsibility, as Minister for Health, to fix our health service.”
At the emergency meeting, the IHCA council also voted to significantly escalate the organisation’s CARECANTWAIT campaign.
As part of the ongoing #CARECANTWAIT campaign, the IHCA recently released a video, featuring its vice president, Dr Laura Durcan.
Dr Durcan, a consultant rheumatologist, said there is a “lack of urgency” on the part of the Government in relation to the consultant crisis.
Dr Durcan said: “There is a lack of urgency around this issue, which is progressively destroying the basic fabric of hospital services.
“The Government’s current approach of delay, in the hope of ‘limping’ to the next General Election is unacceptable and is failing vulnerable patients.”
