AMA (NSW) welcomes Bill to modernise conditions for VMOs

AMA (NSW) welcomes a Private Members Bill, tabled in NSW Parliament this week, which will allow doctors contracted to work in the public hospital system to negotiate and modernise their pay conditions for the first time in 17 years.

Terms and conditions for Visiting Medical Officers – who make up half the medical workforce in NSW public hospitals – have not been updated since 2007, despite substantial changes in the ways they use technology to deliver better patient care and efficiencies for NSW Health.

The Bill, introduced by Wagga Wagga MP and doctor Joe McGirr, seeks to amend the Health Services Act 1997 and the Health Services Regulation 2018, paving the way for an arbitrator to be appointed from the Industrial Court following the court’s re-establishment by the NSW Government earlier this year. This will allow VMOs to arbitrate for better conditions before an experienced industrial judge, as was the case before the court was dismantled in 2016.

“AMA (NSW) has been working on this issue for quite some time, so we are very pleased to see this Bill now up for discussion,” AMA (NSW) president Dr Kathryn Austin said.

“The concerns of VMOs are the concerns of all doctors – to be paid fairly for the work they do in a modern health system.

“If the NSW Government is serious in suggesting arbitration is the path to improving arrangements for those working in health in NSW, VMOs need to be able to access the Industrial Relations Commission.”

Dr Austin said VMOs had been waiting patiently for the opportunity to modernise their conditions and were now looking forward to positive dialogue on the issue in parliament, and real change.

“NSW public hospitals need VMOs. Our regional and rural hospitals and patients, in particular, rely heavily on them, but they deserve fair recognition and remuneration for the substantial ways in which their work has changed over the past 17 years,” Dr Austin said.

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