I decline to work further for a system that sees its doctors as the enemy -Letter by a Caboolture emergency consultant. #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
Dear editor, (courier mail)
I am a senior doctor of QHealth.
I was the only Caboolture emergency consultant not to resign when that department closed – I was so committed to the population I grew up in.
I am so thoroughly disgusted with how dismissively my colleagues and I have been treated, and at how the government has treated us as adversaries, that I will not be finishing my 20th year working for QHealth.
There has been no “negotiation” since the almost completed MOCA negotiations were scrapped.
A negotiation implies compromise and a preparedness to give ground.
We were initially given a week to comment on the contract after which QHealth would adjust the contract as they saw fit and there would be no further negotiation.
The only ground I have seen given was that the clause allowing QHealth to redeploy its doctors anywhere in the world without consultation has been changed to anywhere in the service.
The point has not been lost.
The DG can still issue a directive enabling worldwide redeployment at a whim.
Each negotiation since has opened with the statement that the contracts and legislation will not be changed.
The minister’s band aids are insulting.
Issuing a ministerial directive limiting the powers of the DG issuing directives?
Adjusting the HHB act so that inconsistencies between the contract and a directive will be resolved in favor of the contract UNLESS a regulation states otherwise?
Adding an addendum to the contract instead of changing the contract?
Continuing to deny us access to the QIRC, but saying that QHealth can ask a DP of the QIRC to “review” mediations?
Seriously?
My consultant group are still waiting for our current dispute to get to QIRC.
We have had a payroll dispute about an interpretation of MOCA escalated to the district level.
All involved have agreed we were correct and payroll was thence ordered to fix our pay – until it was found that the new payroll computer could not cope with how MOCA was written.
Subsequently, because the computer couldn’t cope with it, our interpretation was rejected and our only recourse was QIRC.
Under the new system, our only recourse would be the supreme court – over a payroll computer system inadequacy.
I decline to work further for a system that sees its doctors as the enemy, that publically attacks our probity, that accuses us of being “crooks” for political gain, and that changes the law to enable us to be treated in a manner that would have been illegal at the last election.
I deplore the threats and bullying engaged in by QHealth to force doctors to sign these contracts.
I understand why the government employs spin doctors, but the “spin” has crossed the line to misleading parliament and the public.
This government sees that its ideology and internal politics are more important than providing a functional health service, and that is enough to make me move my family interstate.
While many of my colleagues will also be submitting their resignations before 31 March, I have no intention of withdrawing mine, regardless of whether the health minister stops bullying his state’s doctors.