100 doctors offered jobs at the new Northern Beaches Hospital have yet to sign contracts
A hundred doctors with jobs offers from Northern Beaches Hospital have yet to sign contracts less than two weeks before it is due to open - but why?
Manly
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A HUNDRED doctors with jobs offers from Northern Beaches Hospital have yet to sign contracts less than two weeks before it is due to open.
A spokesperson from Healthscope, which is the private company running the hospital, said they had until the end of the week to sign the contracts. Another 200 have already signed.
However, some consultants said they were unhappy with the conditions, with doctors set to be paid less for treating public patients at Northern Beaches Hospital than in a public hospital.
Meanwhile, Healthscope is still advertising 35 different types of jobs, some advertisements are for multiple vacancies including full-time, part-time or casual positions.
Included are some highly specialised positions including an intensive care unit manager, midwifery unit manager, nurse unit manager for emergency paediatrics, and various roles for registered nurses in the recovery ward, specialist care nursery, critical care and ICU.
One union representing some of the unhappy consultants, the Australian Medical Association, said it was disappointing that Healthscope had left it all to the last minute.
AMA NSW President Dr Kean-Seng Lim said the union had asked for draft copies of the contracts in December 2017, but were only provided three weeks ago.
“The contracts provide by Healthscope included a number of provisions which were not consistent with the contracts applicable to doctors working in public hospitals,” he said.
“While Healthscope responded to some of the issues put forward by AMA NSW, we remain concerned that the contracts have reduced the entitlements and conditions for some groups of members.
“The reductions to the contract impact on payments for services to public hospital patients.”
One nurse, who wanted to remain anonymous, said most of her peers had signed contracts now, but there was a lot of “ill will” among staff towards Healthscope.
She said that nursing shifts had increased from 10 hours a day to 10.5 and staff would have to clock in and out. Their contracts stated that if staff were more than six minutes late they would be docked 15 minutes pay.
She said while she believed staff should be on time, clocking in and out felt like they were going to “work at a prison”.
“A lot of us who are going up there are not doing so because we want to work for a private hospital, but because we know the patients need someone up there,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong the hospital is physically beautiful, pretty and clean, but at the moment there’s a lot of ill will among staff towards Healthscope.”
She added that she had also heard the hospital would only be able to operate at 50 per cent capacity.
A Healthscope spokesperson said the hospital had recruited hundreds of staff in addition to the hundreds transferring from Manly and Mona Vale hospitals and would have appropriate staffing when it opened on October 30.
“We will continue to advertise for staff after the hospital opens, particularly as demand for services increases, which is standard practice for every hospital,” she said.
“It is not correct to say that the hospital will be running at 50 per cent capacity; all services will be open. As Northern Beaches Hospital is a significantly larger hospital than Manly and Mona Vale Hospitals, for many services, demand will increase over time.
“We have received more than 300 signed letters of appointment from doctors and they have until next week to sign and return contracts.
“We appreciate that change can be unsettling for some; but we also acknowledge that many doctors are excited to be joining Northern Beaches Hospital. This was demonstrated by the hundreds of doctors who attended training and orientation this month.
“We will have a highly skilled, robust workforce at Northern Beaches Hospital.”