Dear Mr Springborg, the health of the state is in your hands #smoqld #qldpol #keepourdoctors
A NAMBOUR doctor has written an impassioned letter to Health Minister Lawrence Springborg and Premier Campbell Newman as the stand-off over a contracts dispute shows no sign of abating.
The doctor, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of “legal implications”, wrote the letter on behalf of all Senior Medical Officers (SMOs) statewide.
She explained to Mr Springborg – who has suggested the legislative changes to the contracts are irreversible – exactly what irreversible means in her profession.
This is an extract of a letter sent to the Minister for Health, Lawrence Springborg, from an unnamed Sunshine Coast Senior Medical Officer. It is about the ongoing row over new contracts.
If SMOs are not convinced that our ability to continue to practice public health medicine with safety is secured, then the state will be in grave danger of losing its brightest and best.
We say to you that nothing in your legislation is irreversible.
You are dealing with a group of people who understand what is truly irreversible and impossible, as they have stood in the face of death and tried to stare death down, bargained against time with their knowledge, skills, equipment and courage, and sometimes failed, and often times not.
When you have to tell parents that their child has autism and intellectual impairment and that their lives will forever be filled with difficulty and challenge, and watch their grief unfold – that is irreversible.
When you tell parents that their baby has cerebral palsy and will never walk or talk, or even eat independently, because their brain is malformed or damaged beyond repair – that is irreversible.
Nothing here with your individual contract legislation is impossible to change – we’ll tell you what is impossible.
When you’re trying to bring back a heartbeat in a child who has been pulled from the bottom of a pool an hour after its heartbeat stopped – that is impossible.
Don’t you dare sit there and tell us that this legislation is irreversible and that stopping this contract rollout is impossible.
Because we know that all it takes is a show of hands in a parliamentary room, and the swipe of a pen across a piece of paper.
No fancy machines, no million dollar drugs, no transplanted tissues, no 12-hour operations, and no miracles of fate.
Just understanding and goodwill from your colleagues and yourselves. We have each others’ backs.
So we will stand together, even if we have to walk away, together – until you listen, and pull on the brakes, and stop this train wreck from playing out to its end.
Please enter the discussions with goodwill, and open minds and hearts, and leave your egos on the coat rack outside.
The health of the state is in your hands
Please don’t throw it away.