Medical specialists unhappy with proposed new contracts #qldpol #keepourdoctors threaten Newman Government
THE Newman Government has been warned public hospital elective surgery will grind to a halt if it refuses to renegotiate proposed contracts for medical specialists.
Doctors are threatening mass resignations in protest, with rural and regional areas expected to be hardest-hit.
Specialists at Townsville Hospital have said they will leave if the contracts are introduced in their current form.
Australian Medical Association (AMA) federal president Steve Hambleton said Cairns Hospital specialists told a meeting last week they were having their homes valued and were looking into alternate schools for their children in preparation for a possible walkout.
“We’ve got to fix this,” Dr Hambleton said. “The current path the Government is taking is inevitably going to result in a significant loss of doctors out of the Queensland Health system that is going to severely impair our ability to safely look after our patients.
“If the Government holds out, I’m absolutely 100 per cent confident there’ll be large numbers of resignations.
“It’ll take the health system in this state years to recover.”
Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation president Tony Sara said a mass exodus of doctors from Queensland public hospitals would cause chaos.
“Emergencies would be taken care of,’’ Dr Sara said.
With interstate and New Zealand doctors’ unions issuing an employment alert late last year warning members against moving to Queensland, the State Government would be forced to seek medical specialists from wider afield.
Dr Hambleton and Dr Sara said they feared the proposed contracts would lead to an exodus of experienced doctors.
Doctors have cited five key problems with the contracts – inadequate dispute resolution, the possibility of dismissal without cause, potential for changes to terms of employment without agreement, no guarantee existing remuneration will be met and health managers would have power to forcibly transfer specialists to another hospital, or change their shifts
“Doctors are not going to let very sick people die or suffer harm, but elective surgery would grind to a halt.’’
A spokesman for Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said the complaints had “little substance” and most doctors would be better off under the contracts.
“It’s going to produce better patient outcomes,” he said.
Source: Courier Mail