More than 100 people have protested against the State Government’s controversial doctors contracts outside the Gold Coast University Hospital today. #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
Doctors were joined by nurses and members of the public in support of their stand against signing the contracts they say are being forced upon them and will impact on patient care.
The protest group chanted “SMOs (senior medical officers) say no” and “real doctors not spin doctors”, with many specialists joined by their families.
Doctors hope the government will back down and reopen negotiations around conditions in the contracts.
They are calling for safer working hours, fatigue control, dispute resolution and contracts that can’t be changed.
EARLIER:
A well-respected orthopedic surgeon has resigned from the Gold Coast Health Service saying the crisis with State Government and senior specialists has tipped him over the edge.
Dr Ezekiel Tan has given his three months notice, among other Coast specialists and VMOs who have also resigned because of unrest over signing controversial Queensland Health contracts they feel are being forced upon them.
Specialist group chairman Dr Jon Field said the departure was a huge lose as Dr Tan was a “most efficient hard working and respected orthopedic surgeon”.
The resignation comes ahead of an emergency rally at the Gold Coast University Hospital against the contracts at 12.30pm today and hundreds are expected to attend.
Dr Tan’s resignation letter, obtained by the Bulletin, said the behaviour and posturing of the government and Queensland Health bureaucracy over the last week had finally tipped the scales in that direction for him.
“The Newman government and the QLD Health bureaucracy have conducted a very deliberate change of legislation and a disingenuous media campaign prior to trying to sign us on to these contracts with a firm deadline in mind,” Dr Tan wrote.
“Multiple senior doctors have voiced our opinions directly to the government and to QLD Health and they have chosen to ignore the concerns that we have raised, countering it with insulting public relations spin on any angle they could conjure inside and outside of parliament.
“We have raised the real possibility of senior staff moving off and this has been brushed off as political brinkmanship. It is much simpler than that — we talk straighter than our politicians.
“This is no brinkmanship and a lot of clinicians will leave if the government does not make real progress with this issue much earlier than the end of this month.”
Dr Field said morale was at an all time low and there was going to be a “big exodus” if talks this week did not reach a resolution doctors were happy with.