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In light of today’s 24-hour strike by NSW public hospital nurses, AMA (NSW) calls on the NSW Government to urgently invest in a modern workforce to match the state’s cutting-edge health facilities.
Doctors, like nurses, are feeling the effects of years of restraint on industrial award issues and are becoming disillusioned with the public hospital system.
Visiting Medical Officers (medical practitioners contracted to provide services in hospitals) make up a large proportion of the medical workforce, yet the last substantive work review of VMO Determinations was in 2007 and the last time a work value case, where the award is examined to determine its suitability, was run for VMOs was the early 1990s.
Recent NSW Government Wages Policy has also restricted AMA (NSW) and unions from seeking reform of the industrial instruments applying to the public hospital system.
The wages Policy, in place from 2011 until the change of government last year, capped remuneration increases but, perhaps more importantly, placed significant restrictions on the capacity for industrial organisations to seek changes in terms and conditions.
Meanwhile, pressure on our doctors continues to grow, with almost 800,000 presentations to emergency departments and record ambulance arrivals across NSW between April and June this year, according to the latest Bureau of Health Information’s quarterly performance report.
We have new and updated hospitals – but they serve no purpose without expert doctors, nurses and allied health staff available.
It is time to modernise award conditions to reflect the work being done by our doctors, and the value they bring to the community.
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