Central Coast hospitals limped along with reduced numbers of doctors on site this week, along with others in the state, as members of ASMOF (the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation) across NSW took industrial action for 72 hours from Tuesday to Thursday, April 8-10.
Despite an appeal from Health Minister Ryan Park for cancellation of the strike, up to 200 doctors on the Central Coast joined colleagues around the state in calling for better pay and conditions.
Park warned of cancellation of surgeries and urged patients with non-urgent conditions to present at urgent care clinics rather that hospital Emergency Departments.
But Medical Registrar at Gosford Hospital Dr Isaac Wade, who joined protesters at the NSW Ministry of Health office in St Leonards on Tuesday, said doctors were fed up with being paid far less than their colleagues in other states and being forced to do hours of paid and unpaid overtime.
“I think there are around 200 members of the ASMOF on the Central Coast, but not all of those people were striking, certainly not all at once,” he said.
“We made sure that there were enough staff at hospitals to cover new and existing inpatients but some clinics and elective surgeries were pushed back.”
Wade said the reductions were in line with weekend and public holiday staffing levels and denied the industrial action threatened patient safety.
“If covering the hospitals to a level similar to a weekend is unsafe, our public holiday and weekend staffing has been unsafe for the past 10 years,” he said.
Wade has been working at Gosford Hospital for two years, after completing his studies on the Central Coast prior to that.
He will remain at Gosford for the rest of the year before being rotated out of area.
“The salary issue is our first point on a long list,” he said.
“Doctors in NSW, especially those who have just qualified and are starting their careers, are paid 30-50% less than those in other states.
“This is seeing not just a failure to attract doctors in NSW, but attrition as doctors leave for better conditions in other states.
“Wyong Hospital, in particular, is always struggling to keep doctors.”
Wade said another major point of contention was that there was no mandated maximum number of hours doctors could work in a week.
He said an outdated guideline suggested doctors should be rostered on for 80 hours per fortnight, but the reality was that many were working far more hours than that.
“Health district rosters often see doctors working 13-14 hours above that recommended figure on weekends and it is not unusual for us to work 3-4 hours of unpaid overtime on week-day shifts,” he said.
“Over the course of a fortnight, many doctors are working 120-150 hours, especially those with surgical specialties.
“They are incredibly long hours.
“I would be willing to compromise on salary if we could get more in the way of safe working conditions.
“We are seeing really vulnerable junior doctors working unsafe hours and we are not giving the best care to patients doing that amount of overtime.”
Wade said there was a lot of misinformation claiming doctors were seeking a 30% payrise over one year.
“We are asking for that amount over a 3-5 year period,” he said.
Central Coast Local Health District declined to comment.
Be the first to comment on "Hospitals limp through doctors’ strike"