Mass resignation is no bluff as specialists threaten to walk out of Cairns Hospital over contracts #qldpol #keepourdoctors #Cairns
ABOUT 90 per cent of Cairns Hospital’s senior medical officers, including almost every specialist in the emergency department, are threatening to quit over controversial new contracts.
Doctors warn the threat of a mass resignation, as many as 1000 of the state’s 3000 specialists, is no bluff.
Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has described the threat of a mass exodus of senior medical officers over new contracts as a “phantom crisis” to pressure the Newman Government.
But a map of conflict zones, compiled by fresh data from an online survey of senior medical staff, shows hospital staff in almost all of the state’s main cities and towns are opposed to the new contracts. In Cairns Hospital alone 90 per cent of senior staff, 108 out of 120 specialists, indicated they would resign unless the impasse is resolved.
Emergency specialist Dr Peter Pereira, 50, said the fate of the state’s public health system was at flashpoint.
“Doctors stand to get a bullet in the head,” said the Cairns father-of-two and Senior Medical Staff Association spokesman.
“It is so dispiriting, the whole system has been thrown into emotional turmoil, and all goodwill has evaporated.
“You need soft hearts in a hospital. This has turned us cold.”
Surgery would stop, cardiology treatment would be halted and trainee doctors would not graduate under the deadlock, he said.
In his emergency department, 13 out of 14 positions have indicated they would resign rather than sign the unfair contracts. Most doctors oppose a “profits before patients” clause in the contract in which medicos can be ordered to use cheaper treatment regimes or face the sack.
Mr Springborg has knocked back an invitation to front the so-called Pineapple Group, a collective of senior medical staff, at crisis talks in Brisbane tonight.
“These dire predictions to convince the public there is a crisis are not valid,” said the Health Minister’s spokesman.
Most doctors had not yet seen their individual contracts which are due to be delivered by the end of next week, he said.
“They’ll be able to compare what they are getting under the new contract and what they got in past.
“We are confident doctors will see it as a good thing.”
Senior doctors say the map, based on an online survey by Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association of Queensland, shows the Health Minister has underestimated the scale of the opposition to the dispute.
Source: Cairns Post