Minister’s pleas fall on deaf ears as doctor walkouts imminent

Thousands of NSW doctors are set to go on strike for the first time in decades as the state Health Minister’s pleas appeared to fall on deaf ears ahead of Tuesday’s looming three-day walkout.

St George Hospital in Kogarah, in Sydney’s south – one of NSW’s public hospitals set to be hit by Tuesday’s strike action. Picture: Christian Gilles

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Thousands of NSW doctors are set to go on strike for the first time in decades as the state Health Minister’s pleas appeared to fall on deaf ears ahead of Tuesday’s looming three-day walkout.

The Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation is predicting many of its 9000 members to strike from Tuesday over a pay and conditions dispute with the NSW government, despite being ordered by the Industrial Relations Commission to refrain from industrial action.

The union on Monday confirmed it would strike as planned despite NSW Health Minister Ryan Park’s last-minute plea for doctors to return to the negotiating table.

“We will see patients, and their wellbeing and safety, impacted over the next three days if the strike proceeds,” he said on Monday. “You can’t have thousands of doctors threatening to walk off without having an impact on ­patient care.

“This idea that patients are not going to be impacted, that no one is going to be worse off, is simply not true – we (NSW Health) have already started cancelling (elective) surgery.”

Mr Park said ASMOF had “ignored” the government’s offer for a backdated 3 per cent pay increase provided the union scrap their industrial action, adding the government would need to spend around $11bn to meet the union’s wage demands.

“The government has put an independent umpire (the IRC) in place and (its) decision is that the doctors union should go back to the negotiation table,” he said.

Mr Park urged for a period of “intense negotiations” to get the issue “resolved”, adding that he was “extremely disappointed and frustrated” with the union.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park. Picture: Gaye Gerard

“We’ve begun the (surgery) cancellation process,” he said, adding that during a recent nurses strike “many hundreds” of surgeries had to be cancelled each day, and warning people to expect something similar if ASMOF’s strike proceeded.

The state Liberals called the impending walkout a “full-blown emergency”, claiming the Labor government was “big on talk but failing on action”.

“I’d ask both (the government and ASMOF) to put patients first, come to the negotiating table and resolve this in the interests of ­patients and the general public,” said Liberal leader Mark Speakman, who criticised Labor’s election commitment to abolish the public-sector wage cap.

Opposition health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane said if frontline workers were striking or leaving – Tuesday’s doctors walkout follows February’s mass psychiatrist resignation – then “maybe the problem is you (the Labor government)”.

“When our doctors strike for the first time this century, when they follow nurses, when they follow psychiatrists, you know something is desperately wrong, and the common denominator is the (NSW) Labor government,” Ms Sloane said.

Speaking outside south Sydney’s St George Hospital on Monday, ASMOF NSW executive director Andrew Holland confirmed the strike would proceed, downplaying concerns surrounding patient safety.

“This decision hasn’t been taken lightly,” he said.

ASMOF executive director Andrew Holland. Picture: Nikki Short

“It (the decision) is a result of our members being pushed to breaking point. After many months of negotiating (the government) hasn’t addressed our concerns about workload or funding, or a brain drain.”

Mr Holland said NSW doctors were Australia’s lowest paid and the union and members would ensure emergency units had safe staffing levels.

NSW Health has said it doesn’t know how many of the union’s 9000 members will walk off the job and ASMOF has already passed the IRC’s deadline to advise members against striking and rollback action.

Hospitals would essentially run as if it were a weekend or public holiday, with emergency departments running but elective surgery and consultations cancelled.

The government is also attempting to negotiate pay rises for NSW nurses, paramedics and psychiatrists, blaming a decade of frozen wages under previous Liberal governments for poor conditions and pay.

The union wants a 30 per cent rise in total, which it says will bring remuneration in line with other states, and the government has countered with a 10.5 per cent increase over three years.

NSW Health warned doctors would be told to return to work if patients were put at risk and ASMOF made clear it would take on any fines incurred by strikes.

The state’s psychiatrists sought a 25 per cent pay jump, while nurses and midwives are angling for a 15 per cent one-year pay increase.