Cairns residents back doctors according to poll #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
MOST Cairns residents oppose the State Government’s plan to move doctors to individual contracts and fear public hospitals will suffer if specialists are replaced with foreign doctors, according to a phone poll of about 670 locals.
Almost nine out of 10 people surveyed are also concerned doctors will leave the public health system if the controversial contracts are introduced.
Phone polling conducted on behalf of Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation’s Keep Our Doctors group last Wednesday night found 75 per cent of locals opposed the introduction of the controversial new contracts.
The ReachTELL poll of 668 locals also found 81 per cent of residents believe bringing in foreign doctors to replace doctors who quit over the new agreements will have a negative impact on the state’s public hospitals.
Together Union representative and Cairns Hospital doctor Sandy Donald said the results showed the Far North’s public hospital doctors had widespread community support.
“Residents are overwhelmingly opposed to the Government’s push to force doctors to sign up to unfair individual contracts,” he said.
“The State Government’s attempts to force doctors to sign on to unfair individual contracts will have a serious and lasting impact on the Cairns public health system.”
Dr Donald said hiring foreign doctors to fill vacancies left by doctors who resigned over the contract dispute was extremely unpopular with the community.
“It’s no doubt that the vast majority of Cairns residents aren’t happy with that approach – we’ve seen how that’s turned out in the past,” he said.
“The State Government has an opportunity to avert this health disaster by sitting down with doctors and negotiating an agreement that puts the needs of the Cairns community first.”
About 65 per cent of voters are also less likely to vote for the LNP at the next state election as a result of the doctors’ contract issue.
The Government has said it has finished its negotiations and no more changes will be made to the contracts, with the April 30 deadline remaining in place.
Source: Cairns Post