Royal Hobart Hospital: Doctors take unprecedented industrial action amid government dispute

A dispute between the state government and Tasmania’s public health system doctors has intensified, with medicos staging a protest on the day the state budget was handed down.

AMA protest at RHH. Picture: Chris Kidd

Doctors have voiced their anger at the state government’s latest pay offer, choosing the day of the budget to stage an unprecedented protest on the steps of the Royal Hobart Hospital.

About 30 medicos gathered at the hospital’s Campbell St entrance on Thursday, as Treasurer Michael Ferguson prepared to hand down the budget.

The government has offered salaried medical practitioners working in the public health system pay rises of 3.5 per cent in the first year of their new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) and 3 per cent in each of the successive years.

The EBA is due to commence from July this year but the latest offer was rejected by 97 per cent of Australian Medical Association (AMA) members who would be covered by the agreement.

AMA lead negotiator Michael Lumsden-Steel said some doctors had come in on their day off in a show of solidarity and the decision to take industrial action was not one that was taken “lightly”.

AMA protest at RHH, Emergency Physician Dr Eleanor Loughhead, Intensive Care Registrar Dr Kristof Wing, Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Victoria Jackson, TSMPS Secretary Dr Michael Lumsden- Steel and RMO Dr Elif Stoneman. Picture: Chris Kidd

He said Tasmania had to offer competitive packages to doctors in order to attract the best talent and prevent an exodus of current staff.

“We’re not able to deliver care how we’d like to deliver it with the resources that we’ve got,” Dr Lumsden-Steel said.

“That’s why we’re acting now. We can’t wait.”

The AMA is hoping to meet with government representatives to discuss a revised offer before the end of the week and would “like to be able to pull back from all industrial action”.

AMA protest at RHH. Picture: Chris Kidd

A Department of Premier and Cabinet spokeswoman said it was “disappointing” that the AMA and the Tasmanian Salaried Medical Practitioners Society had taken industrial action.

“They are encouraged to reconsider this, so that negotiations are not delayed, discussions can continue, and doctors can receive their salary increases when they are due in July 2023,” she said.

The spokeswoman said the government would “continue to negotiate in good faith with the union to deliver a fair and affordable wage increase”.