Part of the solution

Part of the solution

After witnessing how poor working conditions for doctors-in-training were contributing to underpayment, burnout and fatigue, Dr Sanjay Hettige committed his training years to advocate for change.

Anger. That’s what Dr Sanjay Hettige felt as an intern finally seeing first-hand how poor the hospital systems were when it came to looking after doctors. 

“It was eye opening to me,” said Dr Hettige. 

“I have a lot of friends who have jobs outside of medicine and I started to compare our working conditions, treatment, and what we had to deal with on a day-to-day basis to theirs. Having that perspective drove me to want to be a part of changing a damaged system,” he stated.

Currently the DIT Representative on the AMA (NSW) Board of Directors and Co-Chair of the AMA (NSW) Doctors-in-Training Committee, Dr Hettige has been a strong advocate for DITs throughout his medical career.

Dr Hettige has been a member of the AMA since he was a medical student and was previously the NSW Representative on the AMA Council of Doctors-in-Training (AMA CDT).

“It just felt like a natural fit for me to be a part of the AMA,” Dr Hettige said. 

“Seeing that there were so many issues to be dealt with that could improve working conditions for doctors-in-training made me passionate to be in the role I am in today. I always think that the best way to create change is through collective action and seeing what the AMA (NSW) Doctors-in-Training Committee had already achieved over the years felt right for me.”

Dr Hettige believes doctors shouldn’t have to deal with all the issues in the system that make their work so much harder. 

“As doctors, we’re there to care for our patients and make a difference, it shouldn’t be so difficult to do so,” he said.

Even through the COVID pandemic, Dr Hettige continued advocating for better working conditions for doctors-in-training. Despite such a rapidly changing environment, the AMA and the DITC rose to the crisis.

“COVID meant that we had to be reactive; we had to quickly change what we were doing advocacy-wise and deal with the problems in front of us such as the pausing of JMO rotations and lack of PPE. I think everyone was on the same path. We knew it was going to be challenging, but we were ready to respond to the different obstacles that were thrown to us on a day-to-day basis.” 

Among his proudest achievements is being a part of the team that established the Hospital Health Check (HHC) in NSW. The HHC has been pivotal in eliminating the barriers that make it harder for DITs to claim unrostered overtime. The survey has also led to an expansion to the list of pre-approvals for UROT and the creation of the online claiming system. 

“Doctors should get paid for the work that they do. It just seems wrong that it wasn’t happening, and I think this simple idea improves working conditions immensely because you’re getting valued for the work you actually do.”

Dr Hettige said that seeing the problem, speaking up about the problem, and then fixing the problem by taking high quality data from the HHC to the Ministry that revealed the extent of the problem has resulted in real change.

He aims to advocate on more doctor-in-training issues such as safe working hours, night-shift standards, fatigue standards, and making sure bullying and harassment numbers in hospitals are reduced. 

In addition to his involvement in medico-politics, Dr Hettige is a second-year radiology registrar at Nepean Hospital.

“I did struggle with time management skills at first as I had a big problem with saying yes to everything. But being surrounded by other amazing DITs who are just as passionate as me for advocacy really helped,” he said.

“I’ve always been someone that wants to take the opportunity to do what I’m passionate in, and I think as a doctor sometimes you can feel like you’re too busy to do these things. When you’re passionate about something and surrounded by the people that understand the position you’re in, you can create the time and make it work.”