Specialists say Premier’s doctor replacement comments unhelpful #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
The Gold Coast Medical Association says it is concerned the Premier has stated he will replace specialists, who refuse to sign contracts, with interstate or overseas doctors.
Local specialists say they are considering a mass resignation if the impasse over individual work contracts continues.
Specialist and association vice-president Dr Stephen Withers says senior doctors are difficult to replace because their skills are in demand across the world.
“I’m not sure where the Premier would be hoping to recruit those doctors from but I certainly don’t think that comments such as that are really … helpful in bringing us back to the table so that we can try and come up with a good system, so that we can save the Queensland public hospital system,” he said.
“Doctors are saying now perhaps the better thing to do is to resign en masse and to say, well if the work and the time and energy doctors have put into the public system, if that’s not going to be valued then that will have to be a decision that the Government will work its way through.”
Junior doctors
There are concerns about the impact on junior doctors if senior medical officers resign en masse over the contracts.
Medical graduate numbers have tripled in the past decade, with more than 1,000 interns expected to start their training in Queensland in 2016.
The Australian Medical Association’s Dr James Churchill says the loss of one senior doctor can impact on several junior ones in training.
“We are concerned that the exodus of a large number of senior medical staff will lead to a significant decline in the quality of training in Queensland and may even make some training positions in Queensland untenable in terms of lack of supervision,” he said.
“We’ve got a significant increase in the Queensland-based medical graduates and so in the coming years we are going to need to see an increased capacity in Queensland, let alone a mass exodus of senior medical staff that led to a training crisis in Queensland.”
Premier Campbell Newman says no-one should doubt the State Government’s resolve to push ahead with the individual agreements.
“I say to the rank and file doctors – please go and look at the contracts, listen to what the Minister has said,” Mr Newman said.
“Read what the director-general has put out and then judge.”