Dr Gabrielle Colleran

to provide it on a Saturday without pulling down the blanket and leaving Monday uncovered.

Because remember, David, in the contract, consultants are obliged to be available to work Saturdays if they're asked to do so by their management, but they still get two consecutive days off.

So that would be the Sunday and the Monday of the following week or the Monday and the Tuesday leading into it.

Now, this is the critical piece where the nuance has been lost, David, is, for example, I have said to my clinical director in Hollis Street that I'm happy to come in and do lists on a Saturday, but I'll be by myself.

because the POC consultant contract, that scheduled care negotiation piece, that's happened with consultants, but it hasn't yet happened with any of the other unions.

So if I'm in in Hall Street on a Saturday now, I'll be by myself.

And in the morning, I might scan 16 children on ultrasound.

But if I'm then missing on a Monday, because there wouldn't be cover for me now, David, on a Monday if I'm in on Saturday, and I'll be missing on the Monday, and the three sonographers who can each scan 16 patients, I could read their 50 patients if I'm in on the Monday,

But on this Saturday, I can only do 16.

And when we were in contract negotiations, we made it really clear to the department and the HSE

that Saturday working for scheduled care could only come in in addition to Monday.

It couldn't be a replacement for Monday because we have all the multidisciplinary team in position on the Monday and with a million people on waiting lists, David, we have to use our consultant staff for max capacity.

At the moment, the Minister wants scheduled care from consultants across six days, but we only have staffing for four and the critical piece is that the radiographers, the physiotherapists, the speech and language therapists, they're available Monday to Friday

not on Saturdays, because the Department of Health has to do that piece of work with those unions.

And to be fair to the HSE, when we were in those contract negotiations, and David, I went into those negotiations with my baby when he was three and a half weeks old.

I was changing his nappy on the floor in the department at that age, because at that point there was no nappy changer.

There is now, thanks to my complaints.

Because I really believed, and I still do, that this contract is a game changer for the provision of care.

And it has to be resourced.

The consultant staffing and the rest of the MDT team.