The state’s senior medicos have so little trust in the government, doctors have refused to vote on whether they will even consider the new contracts, without seeing them first.
But while resignations have still not been ruled out, doctors at Wednesday’s ‘Pineapple Group’ meeting did vote to take the threat of mass resignations off the table – for now.
But many questioned why they were still being asked to accept contracts which left them “worse off” than they were in November, when the government first stated its intentions to change doctors’ employment conditions.
Lawyer Luke Forsyth, who formed part of the doctors’ taskforce negotiating team, said he believed “this is as far as we can get it [the contracts], given the current government’s ideologies in respect to this”.
“I think this is one of these matters that will only change with a change of government,” he told the meeting.
“Because it is fundamentally, ideological.
“[But] I think we have achieved significant gains in these contracts to make them as safe as they can be.”
He despite the taskforce’s best efforts, the government would not guarantee new SMOs would be employed on the same conditions as current specialists, a sticking point with many doctors in the room who were concerned about retaining their younger colleagues.
But Mr Forsyth said doctors were “playing a long game” and while they had “some wins” in the “first innings”, “there was still work to do”.
Doctors were urged to keep working together as a group, regardless of the outcome, with intensive care specialist and group facilitator John Fraser joking the LNP government had “done more for promoting union membership” than any group before it.
But while the taskforce said they believed the contracts were “worthy of being considered”, the doctors in the room said they would not agree to anything until they physically held the new contracts.
Assistant health minister Chris Davis, who was one of those singled out and thanked by the meeting, said the next issue “was to establish trust”. He said he believed the “prognosis” was “guarded but favourable”.
“The reasons for the prognosis are all favourable, but will require ongoing work and also ongoing strong advocacy from all stakeholders,” he said.
“These things as we know, don’t just happen.”
Dr Davis said the original contracts went “severely awry” because they had been based on “the fundamentally poor premise that empowering third parties to determine the relationship between patient and doctor was in the public interest”.
“The patients clearly believed it wasn’t, opinion polls showed it wasn’t and doctors knew it wasn’t to the point where many of you felt obliged to resign,” he said.
“Thanks to the integrity and the skill and the commitment, particularly of the negotiators, we now have a framework that is far more likely to properly and reliably serve the interests of patients, the community and the health professionals.”
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg, who offered to speak at the meeting, was not invited by organisers, in an effort to keep the focus on the contracts and not the politics behind them.
Once doctors have their contracts, the taskforce will ballot them on how to move forward.
The new signing date is May 31, with the contracts due to come into effect on August 4.
Source: Brisbane Times