After weeks of negotiations over the doctor contracts, the government has taken off its gloves. #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
During a question time session in parliament dominated by the doctor employment contract issue on Thursday morning, Premier Campbell Newman said the government was prepared to recruit “interstate or overseas” doctors to replace Queensland doctors who chose to resign.
“Do not doubt the government’s resolve. Do not doubt that we will see this thing through,” he said.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg made a point of mentioning the average senior medical officer working in Queensland Health salary – $400,000 a year, working 40 hours a week – as well as referencing the Auditor-General’s report into the right for private practice which kickstarted the reform process.
He said changes were necessary.
“Public patients are being pushed aside and clear protocols to protect their interest simply must be implemented,” he said.
“We cannot have a circumstance where public patients are being pushed aside in preference for private patients in public hospitals
“The government cannot shun its role to affect the necessary change, it concerns me that when the Director-General went last night to explain the large number of concessions offered to doctors by the government … he was stopped at the door by an interstate union thug.”
More than 1000 doctors attended a meeting Wednesday night to discuss the changes the government was prepared to make to the individual contracts it has put on offer.
They voted to reject the addendum and the contracts and continue negotiations, vowing to continue to fight until legislative protection was provided through the industrial relations act.
Mr Springborg said after a series of intensive meetings, his Director-General Ian Maynard and doctors’ representatives had consented to an agreement, going so far as to produce an “agreed solutions document” on Monday, addressing eight key concerns.
But he said that since then, the “goal posts” had been shifted.
“Now how can you ever have a situation of being able to deal with something concisely when you are told on one hand the contracts are appropriate and they have no problems and they just want to address those issues, you address those issues and the goal posts keep changing,” he told parliament.
“That is what we have seen and trust and honour goes both ways – I have certainly leant a lot about that when I have had to deal with some doctors’ union representatives during the course of this week.”
Mr Newman said unions wanted “a war not a solution” and appealed to doctors to make their own decisions.
“I say to the rank and file doctors, please go and t look at the contracts, have a look, listen to what the minister has said, read what the Director-General has put out and then judge.”