Young doctors say QLD contract dispute may jeopardise their training #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
MARK COLVIN: Young doctors and medical students in Queensland have joined the dispute with the State Government over new contracts for senior doctors in the public health system.
The state government has given doctors until the end of April to sign new contracts, but the Australian Medical Students Association has raised concerns that if senior doctors resign en masse, as they’ve threatened, it’ll seriously compromise their medical training and accreditation.
Nance Haxton reports.
NANCE HAXTON: Junior doctors and medical students in Queensland say the dispute between the state government and senior doctors is jeopardising the training of the next generation of medical specialists.
Hundreds of senior medical officers are refusing to sign the new public hospital contracts and are threatening to resign en masse.
Australian Medical Students Association president, Jessica Dean, says without senior doctors to supervise their training, they cannot complete their accreditation.
JESSICA DEAN: Our concern is that if this dispute in Queensland isn’t resolved effectively and in a timely manner that some of these students are going to have to be redistributed into areas that don’t require supervision, such as, you know, back into university lectures or non-clinical tutorials, and that’s going to affect the amount of clinical exposure they get. And it may have consequences for their accreditation.
NANCE HAXTON: James Churchill is the chair of the AMA’s (Australian Medical Association) Council of Doctors in Training.
JAMES CHURCHILL: So it may be that these doctors have to leave Queensland to continue their training. It may be that patients then have to wait for a longer period of time to receive medical care. There has been some quite high profile resignations, these have been reported publicly.
And junior doctors are already saying that where those resignations have been received that their training quality is starting to be compromised.
NANCE HAXTON: Queensland Health has launched a federal court action to stop unions from allegedly misrepresenting the State Government contracts.
The Together Union, which represents public sector workers, says the court action aims to stifle debate, and they will continue with a meeting of doctors tonight regardless.
Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has ruled out extending the April 30 deadline for signing the contracts.
LAWRENCE SPRINGBORG: The Government has been very clear that the date for signing is the 30th of April.
NANCE HAXTON: The Australian Medical Students Association has raised concerns that if this dispute continues it will have ripple effects for years to come because it will compromise the training of young doctors. Is that a concern you share or one that you’d like to see resolved?
LAWRENCE SPRINGBORG: Absolutely, and the only way that that can be resolved is for the militant interstate union leaders to stop what is a clearly silly mass resignation campaign. Nothing the Government’s doing will actually compromise the training for medical students, in actual fact we’re aiming to enhance it.
MARK COLVIN: Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg ending Nance Haxton’s report.
Source: ABC