I am a medical doctor who has worked for Queensland Health since I graduated from university in 1989.
I am full-time Senior Staff Specialist in Anaesthesia.
Due to the actions of the present day Queensland government, I have signed my letter of resignation. My letter will be submitted in the next week, or soon thereafter. It will accompany hundreds of other letters of resignation from Senior Medical Officers (SMOs) across the state.
Queensland is on the brink of losing more than one-third to one-half of its most experienced and committed Public Health doctors.
Why?? Take a look at the short video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTekQTUjmnM for a short, simplified explanation.
Doctors will not be bullied into signing “contracts” which take away basic employment rights and allow administators to control medical decisions based on profitability.
Those who can afford Private Health care should not be complacent. When you, or your loved ones, are most vulnerable and in need of life-sustaining, complex medical care and attention, it is the doctors and nurses in the Public System who take look after you …
… after you have been scraped into an ambulance after major burns, crashes, trauma;
…. when a blood clot suddenly impairs your heart or brain;
… when your insurance company decides a week in intensive care is enough.
The loss of the experience and dedication of the resigning SMOs will leave the junior doctors without support and backup, and the future generation of doctors-in-training without teachers.
The government is telling the public it has a back up plan; that it can recruit specialist doctors from overseas and interstate. Maybe so; but it will take years to undo the damage.
PLEASE take an interest and involve yourself in protecting our existing Health System because, even with all its faults, it is still one of the best and most socially equitable in the world.
The Newman alternative is another disaster in the making (viz the payroll debacle, viz Bundaberg/Patel).
The link http://keepourdoctors.com.au/email-mp/ will send you the details for your own State Member of Parliament.
Please join the campaign to Keep Our Doctors.