Doctor contracts a matter of trust #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
The state’s senior doctors and the government are at an impasse.
And as Billy Joel sang, it all comes down to a matter of trust.
The doctors don’t trust they will have the protections they want without legislative changes to the state’s industrial laws.
The government doesn’t trust the doctors not to move the “goal posts” again, after Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said he addressed each of the key concerns doctors had raised in an addendum to the contracts.
But the doctors say they are just fighting for what is fair and reasonable, that without industrial relations protection, they remain vulnerable.
Both feel disappointed and let down by the process. Both can’t understand why the other won’t budge.
“What we have done is we’ve provided everything else – you know, all of those things around transfers, around the issues of rostering, around DGs powers, around unfair dismissal, around dispute resolution, they have all of that,” Mr Springborg said.
“And not only did we give that…I come from a creed, I was a farmer, where your handshake is your handshake.
“…We offered the addendum which defused the situation, because they wanted the changes…and there was general support for that. There was also agreement that we should get those changes out by Wednesday. I offered a working group, that was denied. I know now why they didn’t want that, because they didn’t want it solved.”
“…They didn’t want to be able to take those solutions to the doctors last [Wednesday] night.
“To me, that is disappointing. You know, a handshake is a handshake, your word is your word, we said we can’t do changes to the industrial relations act, everyone understood that. We said we’re happy to do almost everything else, which we have done now. I think its time to get a little bit fair dinkum about this.”
Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said while there had been movement on the contract concerns, there was still a lot of mistrust.
“I think there is a relationship breakdown here,” he told Fairfax Radio 4BC.
“The only way to build that relationship is to actually do the sorts of things we have done.
“The doctors said last night they want to see legislative change and that was exactly what was offered by the minister, so we got movement on [Health and Hospital Services act] legislation on the Tuesday, we’ve got movement on the contract which was unfair on Monday – two days later, the doctors get together and of course they are still remembering the six months of no action.
“So we have an issue of trust here. It is very hard to rebuild that in a very short period of time.”
Senior doctors told Fairfax Media that comments by the Premier in parliament on Thursday stating that the government was prepared to look “interstate and overseas” for specialists to replace those who leave Queensland Health “didn’t help”.
And the government’s attempts to paint the issue as union “scare mongering” has had the opposite affect – with Dr Hambleton pointing to more doctors joining unions or donating money “than ever has happened before”.
“It is an extraordinary period of time that medical practitioners, who normally quietly go about their business, have found that collecting together and supporting the union, they feel was their only choice when they weren’t listened to.”
The doctors themselves still seem shocked to find themselves standing side by side with unionists, with one – who asked to remain anonymous to protect his “delicate” contract negotiations – admitting to “feeling like this is some sort of bizarro, upside down world”.
In the meantime, negotiations are continuing. But with Mr Springborg unwilling or unable to commit to the “whole of government” industrial relations legislative change senior doctors have asked for, doctors and his department are back where they were just a few short weeks ago – in a stand off, waiting for the other side to blink.