AMAQ says Queensland Health must be transparent over jobs

Obstetricians are so desperately needed at beleaguered Mackay Base Hospital recruitment agencies are offering “name your price” contracts but are also luring medics with misleading claims.

Obstetricians are so desperately needed at beleaguered Mackay Base Hospital recruitment agencies are offering “name your price” contracts” but are also luring the medics with misleading claims that the hospital’s registrar teaching ban is being lifted.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suspended the facility’s accreditation to train obstetric registrars before the hospital fell into crisis after the death of three newborns and review findings of inadequate care and botched surgeries.

The entire board of the hospital was sacked and is now operating under an administrator.

The advertisement from Global Medics states: “Mackay Hospital and Health Service have made substantial changes in our women’s health unit over the past several months to improve our services. We have also been advised by RANZCOG they are lifting our suspension on training for college pathway registrars”.

RANZCOG confirmed the suspension remains in place.

But further investigation revealed that the hospital is still working on meeting the criteria to have the suspension lifted.

Mackay Base Hospital. Picture: Liam Kidston

A Mackay Hospital and Health Service spokeswoman told The Courier-Mail that “the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology has provided positive feedback to Mackay HHS about the ongoing improvements and indicated that registrar training should be able to recommence when senior clinicians have the capacity to provide supervision”.

“Mackay HHS is currently recruiting additional senior clinicians to enable registrar

training to be supervised,” she said.

The Australian Medical Association Queensland has urged Queensland Health to be transparent about the true pressures hitting the state’s hospitals.

The ban on registrar training would be a deterrent for job applicants.

“AMAQ members have reported shortages of junior and senior doctors throughout Central Queensland. The simple truth is we can’t train new generations of doctors without senior doctors. It’s a vicious circle. Junior doctors need senior doctors to train them. Senior doctors need junior doctors to help with the workload. Senior doctors are unlikely to move to a hospital that has no junior doctors. Junior doctors can’t move to a hospital without senior doctors,” she said.

“Queensland Health needs to be transparent with patients and healthcare workers about the pressures and what it is doing to resolve our workforce crisis. Queenslanders deserve more,” Dr Boulton said.

Global Medics recruiters did not respond to questions. Their ad states “pay rate negotiable and doctors would commence immediately for various lengths of contracts”.