AMA president Steve Hambleton calls for civility in Queensland public specialists’ contract dispute #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
A GROUP formed to fight the Newman Government’s doctor contracts says it is stockpiling pro-forma letters of resignation from medicos until it reaches a “critical mass” of public hospital staff.
But Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton has distanced himself from the tactic and called for a ceasefire to the “nastiness, name calling and emotion”.
Dr Hambleton said the AMA was an “observer” to the taskforce behind the plan to stockpile resignation letters, but said it was “not the AMA’s strategy”.
He called for doctors to “coldly and calmly” examine the Newman Government’s offer to introduce safeguards through an addendum to their contracts in an effort to solve key concerns.
Nine doctors have resigned from Queensland Health since the dispute started. Some were ready to resign on Monday to meet the three-month notice period before the expiration of their workplace agreements on June 30, but cutting the notice period to two months helped the Government dodge that bullet.
Director-general Ian Maynard made the decision to give doctors more time to decide whether to sign their individual contracts by the April 30 deadline or resign.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said the change would help “remove the pressure on doctors from unions demanding they resign their positions by March 31”.
The Courier-Mail yesterday revealed that the head of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, Dr Tony Sara, plotted to draw out talks with the Newman Government by holding off on revealing its “over-my-dead-body” issues until late in the talks.
Vice-president of the doctors union’s Queensland branch Stephen Morrison yesterday confirmed the taskforce was stockpiling doctor resignations to force the Newman Government back to the negotiation table.
“It’s a mark of the intensity of the frustration of the doctor workforce,” Dr Morrison said.
“This mass resignation strategy is symptomatic of the desperation (of doctors).”
But Dr Hambleton called for both sides to end the “pressure cooker environment”.
He implored doctors to “look coldly and calmly” at an addendum to their contracts offered by the Government to try to allay concerns and to “get rid of all the nastiness”.
“The stakes are so high and there’s potential for so much harm,” Dr Hambleton said.
“Can we just take some of the heat out so sensible people can sit down and think about what’s on offer and sensibly go through it.
“We just have to move away from the emotion, move away from the name calling and start looking at an outcome.”
Source: Courier Mail