Doctor contracts: Government agrees to changes #qldpol #smoqld #keepourdoctors
The government has blinked in its standoff with the state’s senior doctors, agreeing to a last-minute change to the contracts that have been the cause of months of distrust and disharmony.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg announced on Monday night that after further discussions with doctors and their representatives, the government had conceded the addendum provisions needed to be worked through the contracts itself.
He also said the government would remove the term “profitability” from the contracts.
“Doctors felt that if these things had been addressed then why not put them in the contract,” Mr Springborg told 612 ABC Brisbane.
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“We’ve been doing a lot of work over the last couple of days. We’ve basically got that draft, we’ve got crown law advice that addresses those issues, so that has changed significantly and we have changed other things as well.
“During the course of the next week or so there will be ample opportunity for the doctors’ representatives to sit down and mull over the words, because lawyers like to nitpick over those things and there will be plenty of nitpicking that will go on and our advice is it basically properly addresses those issues.
“There’s been another issue which has been raised over the last couple of weeks … around this terminology of profitability in the contract. There has been a lot of misrepresentation around that … we’re going to remove that word and just actually refer to the proper and appropriate and respectful utilisation of taxpayer’s resources.”
Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton, appearing on the same radio show, congratulated Mr Springborg.
“Our concerns were there were clauses in the contract which may have allowed financial matters to overrule clinical matters and that was the reason doctors became so upset,” he told 612 ABC Brisbane.
“If we can get to the intent of the addendum and we can get the intent transferred to the contract, that was a substantial change to what was put before doctors and that is something that really should be seriously considered by doctors now.”
But Australian Society for Emergency Medicine industrial relations committee chair, Marcel Berkhout, said doctors needed to be careful.
“What was wrong with what was there before,” he said.
“This is an ideological change. So on one hand, the government is saying no doctor will be worse off, but it has managed to produce a package which has caused universal condemnation through the Queensland Health care system.
“And if it is so good, why is everyone so unhappy?
“… The doctors in the Queensland healthcare system and certainly the emergency physicians indicated strongly to us that they wish to bargain as a group and have a collective arrangement under which all emergency doctors will work under the same contractual arrangements, rather than individual contracts. They have stated this repeatedly to the government.”
Doctors were still considering the changes on Monday night. They are to be discussed in more detail at a meeting of the ‘Pineapple group’ on Wednesday evening.
The April 30 signing deadline, set by Mr Springborg to allow time for payroll changes, still stands.
Source and comments : Brisbane Times