NSW doctors strike over wages and conditions

The NSW public hospital system has experienced its second health care practitioner strike this year. This time, it’s working doctors.

Despite being warned by the Industrial Relations Commission, doctors stopped work for three days last week in unprotected industrial action. Hospitals ran at public holiday staffing levels until 10pm last Thursday with reassurances from the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (ASMOF) that patient care would still be safe.

It’s the second industrial blow to the NSW Government this year after hundreds of psychiatrists resigned over pay and conditions in what the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) called a system on the verge of collapse.

State government negotiations with the doctor’s union, ASMOF, broke down over the bid for a 30% pay rise and a guarantee of 10-hour breaks between shifts. The demands were repeatedly denied and deemed “not possible” according to the NSW Government.

ASMOF argues that the 30% increase is to raise doctors’ wages to be on par with their counterparts in other states.

“We don’t want to be the best paid doctors in Australia. We just don’t want to be the absolute worst,” the Junior Vice President of ASMOF Dr Tom Morrison said.

“The government has not, over many, many years come to the table to negotiate changes and it’s reached breaking point,” Dr Morrison said.

“I think fundamentally this is just about making sure the conditions are safe for doctors,” he said.

Doctors can earn much higher wages in the private system and the pay deal would attract more doctors to public hospitals and with that, a safer working environment,” Dr Morrison said.

“If I was in this job for the money, I could go into private practice,” Dr Tom Morrison said.

“Everyone I know who works in the public system, especially as a consultant, is doing it because they love the patients,” he said.

Dr Morrison is a neurosurgery registrar and like so many of his colleagues is expected to work very long hours with very little time off. He tells the story of being called back for an emergency operation after his shift finished, and only having an hour break.

“There are stories throughout the state of unsafe working hours and unsafe conditions,” he said.

“What we want to do is just have safe working conditions and a fair rate of pay so we can give the patients the care they deserve,” he said.

Dr Morrison said the Medical Officer Award has not been updated since before he was born in 1989. He said the low wage drives interns and other staff interstate.

“I could up and go to Brisbane right now where they’re running advertisements for people like myself to come,” he said.

“I get a $10 000 relocation bonus and my base salary would increase by 30%.”

“More than 10% of the available internship positions weren’t filled this year. And it’s because people are voting with their feet. They’re going to other states to take up better offers,” he said.

“I don’t begrudge them for that, but it’s unsustainable because if the interns aren’t coming through, they don’t become residents. They don’t become registrars, and the people who are left in the system have to work even harder to pick up all the gaps,” Dr Morrison said.

NSW hospitals are facing a wearing down of a safe standard of care if the government doesn’t create wage parity with other states.

“I think we’ll continue to see the erosion of safe care that we already have. I think people will leave for other states. I think the best doctors will not come and work in NSW and that will flow on to care for patients,” Dr Morrison said.

“I honestly cannot understand the government’s rationale,” Dr Morrison said.

“They’ve not made us any offer. They’ve not made any meaningful progress on safe working conditions,” he said.

“I cannot understand why the Chris Minns government would want to have the worst paid doctors in Australia,” he said.

“I think it’s now in the Premier’s hands to fix this crisis”.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park, in an interview with the ABC said the problem of years of stagnant wages can’t be fixed overnight. He also seemed more sympathetic to meeting the needs of junior doctors.

“We can’t simply play catch up of over a decade of wage suppression that’s occurred here in NSW because of a wages cap in a single year. That is not feasible,” Mr Park said.

“But, we have said, particularly for junior doctors who we understand where there’s considerable gaps in their pay here in NSW compared to other jurisdictions, that we are willing to sit down and try and work through this issue.”

He said the government will continue to work through the issue with the Industrial Relations Commission.

“We wish this strike action wouldn’t have taken place, we don’t believe it should have taken place but that’s a matter for the union,” Mr Park told the ABC.

“We can’t get to 30%, that is simply not possible, we have increased their pay last year, we put 10.5% on the table for the next three years but we are willing to continue those discussions, particularly in relation to junior doctors where we can see very clearly that there is a significant gap,” Mr Park said.