Health Minister Lawrence Springborg to talk directly to doctors #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg says he no longer trusts doctors’ representative bodies to inform Queensland’s specialists what the government is doing, so he is bypassing them to talk to doctors directly.
Mr Springborg said he could not “rely upon the AMA or the unions to reliably inform their members of the facts” after doctors rejected the addendum to the individual employment contracts, which the health minister believed addressed their concerns.
“Really, honesty and trust is a two-way thing and doctors deserve to know what is going on,” Mr Springborg said.
“There are many doctors now who are directly contacting us, absolutely disgusted and dismayed at how their professional and union organisations have been running what is a quasi-union campaign and misleading doctors.
“Once they have the facts presented to them, their views are absolutely changing in regards to this and the fact is, they overcooked it last Wednesday night with regards to what was quite an appalling carry-on.”
But while he said he was confident doctors would be able to “see for themselves their issues had been addressed”, he was also prepared for a mass resignation.
“It should be no surprise to anyone that a competent government, concerned about making sure that there is no disruption to public health would have contingencies in place as we have said, we will be making moves to recruit and advertise for doctors in Queensland,” he said.
“That process will be beginning very soon. There is another option to us and that is increasing the number of visiting medical officers, we already have private medical specialists in Queensland who do operate as VMO, we would love to increase the number of visiting medical officers.
“We do also have options of being able to purchase services which would be free to the patient outside of the public system to make sure there is a continuity of care, so we will not play what is a silly union game and disrupt patient care in Queensland. That will not happen.
“People can actually trust us in what we have done; therefore we will be very strong and very resolute in what we have said with regards to the issue of doctors, unions that want to play games by scaring patients and also taking liberties with the jobs by doctors.”
Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said while both sides had faulted over the course of the negotiations, now was not the time to “throw fuel on the fire”.
“Everybody, the AMA, the unions, me and the government needs to think about everything that we do from here on in and how it will help the situation,” he said.
“Now that we have started talking again, that is the best chance of getting it fixed.
“Everyone needs to take the emotion out, keep working towards a goal and every single comment from now on needs to be towards a fix, not against a fix.
“I welcomed the minister’s intervention to this last week – and said we had made the first real process since January, when he intervened to start talks again.
“The minister’s intervention gave us the best hope to get this fixed in Queensland. We need to build on that progress.”
The Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation has been contacted for comment.
Source: Brisbane Times