Elective surgeries will be paused, clinics closed, and hospitals brought to a standstill as thousands of doctors defy a court order and strike for three days next week in the latest dispute between health workers and the Minns government.
NSW Health and the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (ASMOF NSW) were called before the Industrial Relations Commission on Tuesday in an attempt to broker a deal after the doctors’ union rejected two “insulting” pay offers.
ASMOF is demanding a pay rise of up to 30 per cent over an unspecified period to match wages in other states. The government has offered 10.5 per cent over three years.
The two parties could not agree on a final pay offer in the conciliation presided over by IRC Acting Justice Peter Kite. The commission instead ordered the union and its members to abandon the strike, take down social media posts and refrain from taking industrial action for the next three months, a spokesman for NSW Health confirmed.
ASMOF president Dr Nicholas Spooner said doctors had been left with no choice but to strike after the government walked away from negotiations.
“Patients are struggling to see a doctor in NSW public hospitals. That’s because doctors are exhausted, burnt out and leaving the public sector,” Spooner said. “We are working dangerously long hours, including 16-hour back-to-back shifts with barely any rest, and often covering multiple roles due to chronic staff shortages.”
The three-day strike will result in NSW hospitals operating under public holiday or “skeleton” staffing levels. Emergency departments and critical care units would not be affected.
“We want to be very clear with the people of NSW … patient safety will not be affected,” Spooner said. “If you or your family need urgent medical care at any hospital across NSW, our doctors and medical staff will be there to provide it.”
Never before have senior medical officers from across specialties walked out on NSW hospitals, the union said.
“It is unprecedented,” said Dr Behny Samadi, a Sydney intensive care specialist. “That just really shows you that we’re at breaking point … this is not something we want to do. This is something we’ve been backed into.”
The union is yet to provide final figures on how many doctors will strike. Executive director Andrew Holland said the union would wear any potential fines for breaching the orders.
NSW Health acting secretary Matthew Daly was confident the system could cope.
“We probably overstaff, and I think that’s a good thing in terms of patient care and safety,” he said. “That’s not to say there’s plenty of fat to take out in an industrial sense, but the staffing is aligned to anticipated patient demand.”
Health Minister Ryan Park said the doctors’ demands would cost taxpayers $11 billion but did not say over what timeframe.
Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred, Westmead Children’s, Nepean, Westmead, and Wollongong are among the hospitals where doctors had voted to strike.
ASMOF represents salaried doctors employed by NSW Health, including junior and senior medical officers. This includes specialists such as anaesthetists, surgeons and emergency physicians.
What will be impacted
- Elective surgeries – only emergency procedures will be performed
- Outpatient clinics and non-urgent consultations will be cancelled
- Non-urgent medical procedures will be rescheduled
The average salary for senior medical officers is $222,017, according to NSW Health data for the last financial year.
Junior medical officers, who make up about 11,000 of the 16,000 medical positions in NSW hospitals, make as little as $78,000 or $38 an hour. That is $5000 less than Victoria and WA and $12,000 less than their equivalents in Queensland.
Besides the pay rise, demands include enforceable safe working hours to protect patient and staff safety, penalty rates for working unsociable hours, and leave entitlements “that promote work-life balance and fatigue management”.
The union is also lobbying the government to employ more doctors permanently and limit fixed-term contracts to “genuine short-term needs only”.
The strike follows more than a year of negotiations and is the latest industrial dispute gripping the state’s health system since Premier Chris Minns lifted the wages cap in 2023.
Opposition health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane said this latest dispute was a result of the government’s “chaotic industrial process” where paramedics and police have won large pay rises, but doctors and nurses have missed out.
“This is a problem of their own making, and they need to sort it out for the sake of the public health system,” Sloane said.
Park said the government was dealing with the repercussions of the Coalition’s cap on public sector wages, and it was not possible to offer single-year rises of up to 30 per cent.
“I won’t take advice from a [former] government that believes the best way of increasing staff in a health system is by bringing back a wages cap,” he said.
The union and state government are also arbitrating a deal for psychiatrists who threatened mass resignation in their pay dispute.
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