News
Media Statements
1 August 2007
Nelson doctors angry at misleading DHB pay figures
Nelson senior doctors today voiced their anger at DHB manipulation of their pay offer, calling for the Government to intervene in the dispute.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell says today’s stopwork meeting in Nelson was extremely well attended, with at least 50 hospital specialists present.
“Those at the meeting were outraged at the DHBs’ advocate grossly inflating the current pay rates for senior doctors by basing the calculation on those who work longer hours, many of which involve onerous emergency after-hours call work. They also embellished it by including payments to doctors who cover for shortages and absences on top of their normal work.
“By exaggerating pay rates in this way, DHBs are effectively saying they are happy to keep senior doctors under pressure due to staff shortages and long hours, and never mind the negative impact on doctors and their patients,” he says.
The Nelson meeting unanimously supported holding a postal vote of members to decide if lawful industrial action should be taken. There was also unanimous support to reject the DHBs’ current offer and condemn DHBs for their failure to negotiate genuinely.
“This is now the 16th meeting of senior doctors to support holding a vote on whether to take industrial action. Industrial action is a step senior doctors have never before contemplated, so for it to now to be under serious consideration shows the strength of feeling over the current crisis,” Ian Powell says.
Nelson senior doctors also took a further step of resolving that the Government be encouraged to intervene in the DHBs’ failed industrial relations strategy for the medical workforce. This was in direct response to the DHBs’ advocate manipulating information over doctors’ salaries, he says.
The stopwork meetings will continue tomorrow, with another meeting on Nelson Marlborough senior doctors in Blenheim and Canterbury DHB specialists meeting in
