Push for Health staff to be paid heat allowance for working in NT’s hot conditions

HEALTH workers are enduring ‘dangerous conditions’ across remote NT communities and deserve to be paid a heat allowance and an isolation allowance, says the body representing them

Health workers are enduring ‘dangerous conditions’ across remote NT communities and deserve to be paid a heat allowance, says the body representing them

ABORIGINAL and Torres Strait Islander health workers are working in “dangerous conditions” across remote NT communities and deserve to be paid a heat allowance and an isolation allowance, says the body representing them.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Worker Association chief executive Karl Briscoe said employees did their job in “extreme heat, in isolated areas and in dangerous conditions” – harsh settings that deserved extra income to help attract and retain workers.

Mr Briscoe wants workers slugging away in conditions 46C or hotter to be paid a heat allowance.

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“No other Australian worker would be expected to work in these conditions without appropriate remuneration,” he said.

Mr Briscoe said if other health workers were able to claim an isolation allowance, it was only fair ATSI health workers could too.

At 221, the NT has the nation’s highest number of ATSI health practitioners in Australia. Mr Briscoe said considering the NT’s hot conditions, large number of workers, huge areas of isolation and poor health outcomes – this issue was of great importance to the NT.

Mr Briscoe is in Melbourne this week, calling on the Fair Work Commission to improve the terms of the current employment award.

NATSIHWA is asking for a 2 per cent pay increase, as well as heat allowances.

More than 30 people from around Australia have provided witness statements and reports to support the case.

In one statement, a Nhulunbuy ATSI health worker said she’d worked in the NT for 10 years – and had never received a pay raise.

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“I have been really struggling at the moment, because I do a lot of work and I think I deserve a pay rise,” she said.

Mr Briscoe said a future health “crisis” was looming – with fewer ATSI health workers per capita today than there was in 2006.

“This is a health care crisis and it’s going to continue to get worse,” he said.