NSW hospitals are offering to pay junior doctors more than $2000 a day to work during a three-day strike as thousands walked off the job demanding better pay and conditions, leading to widespread elective surgery cancellations and emergency bed closures.
Around 3500 members of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (ASMOF) NSW began their 72-hour industrial action on Tuesday with rallies outside NSW Health headquarters in St Leonards, Westmead Hospital and two regional hospitals.
Hospital doctors are demanding changes to pay and conditions, including safe working hours, compensation for unsociable shift work and a 30 per cent pay rise to match wages interstate. The government has offered 10.5 per cent over three years.
Junior doctor Grace LeMarquand told the rally she routinely worked 13-hour shifts, seven days in a row, only to be asked back for an eighth shift because “there are not enough doctors”.
“In my years as a junior doctor, I’ve seen chronic understaffing and unsafe rostering,” she said. “I’m here [with] all my colleagues to demand change.”
Rehabilitation registrar Sean Smith said he planned to move to Queensland if the government did not offer an improved deal.
Doctors protest for more pay and better conditions outside NSW Health headquarters in St Leonards on Tuesday. Credit: Janie Barrett
“We’re not even here for a pay rise – we’re here for pay equity,” Smith said. “We just want recognition – to be paid what we’re worth – as the rest of the country [is].”
Premier Chris Minns and Health Minister Ryan Park met with the union on Monday evening in an eleventh-hour attempt to avert the strike.
Park said they had offered to separately negotiate a deal for junior doctors, acknowledging their pay – as little as $76,000 a year or $38 an hour – was “not commensurate” to their skills and level of education.
ASMOF refused the offer.
“It’s important that doctors have safe and fair working conditions throughout their entire career in medicine,” ASMOF executive director Andrew Holland said. “We will not agree to any cynical attempts to divide and conquer our membership.”
The union instead offered to call off the strike if the government agreed to an interim 10 per cent pay increase, backdated to June, while negotiations continued.
Holland said doctors did not expect the pay rise in one year, but wanted a “reasonable starting point” for negotiations.
Park said the strike had so far led to hospitals cancelling around 370 elective surgeries, and 3020 outpatient appointments. Twenty-one hospital beds have been closed, including 20 in emergency department short-stay units.
Locum doctor recruitment websites were on Tuesday offering $180 an hour to junior medical officers willing to work overnight emergency and internal medicine shifts during the strike.
NSW Health acting secretary Matthew Daly said some hospitals had decided to bring in locums to supplement doctors who had agreed to work emergency shifts.
“The No.1 priority of any hospital manager is about delivering safe care, and if that means replacing withdrawn labour with locum or any other premium labour, they’ll do it,” he said.
The strike continues until Thursday.
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correction
This story has been updated to correct a previous version which stated that chemotherapy appointments had been cancelled. This was based on NSW government information that was incorrect and for which it has apologised.