source : the age
The state’s health minister has pleaded with public hospital psychiatrists to remain at the bargaining table as an industrial dispute that has seen more than half the workforce tender their resignations reaches its eleventh hour.
More than 200 of the state’s 416 public hospital psychiatrists have submitted their resignations in response to concerns about low pay compared with pay in other states and NSW’s fractured mental health system.
Speaking on Saturday morning, NSW Health Minister Ryan Park begged psychiatrists to withdraw their resignations, which will take effect on January 21.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park has pleaded with psychiatrists to withdraw their resignations.Credit: Rhett Wyman
“We once again say to psychiatrists: please don’t do this. Remain at the table. Don’t do this to patients. Don’t do this to the healthcare system that I know you love and support. Don’t do this to your colleagues who I know you value and trust,” Park said.
The state government has offered hospital staff specialists a pay increase of 10.5 per cent over three years, but the doctors are seeking 25 per cent.
Acting executive director of the union representing hospital doctors, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (ASMOF), Ian Lisser, said psychiatrists were committed to public health and patient welfare but had been left with little choice other than to resign.
“The fact is, psychiatrists are at the table and have been for some time,” he said in response to Park’s comments.
“The NSW government has consistently refused to budge on a 3 per cent pay offer when there is a 30 per cent gap when compared with the pay other psychiatrists receive in other states.”
Lisser said psychiatrists had been “working in a crumbling system for months” and telling Park the situation was untenable.
“And now they have been backed into the corner,” he said.
Park blamed the former Coalition government’s public sector wages cap for the difference between pay for doctors in NSW and other states.
“When you have 10 years of wage suppression brought about because of a cap … there are obviously differences in remuneration,” he said.
The government will next meet with the union in the Industrial Relations Commission on Tuesday.
Park said the government was exploring a range of contingency plans to mitigate effects on patients, including engaging with the federal government and private sector around additional workforce capacity, establishing a Mental Health Emergency Operations Centre and engaging police and ambulance.
Last month, the Herald revealed that NSW Health was offering “crisis” rates up to $3050 a day to locum psychiatrists.
Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson said at the time that the government was exploring every option to ease the impact on patients, including finding staff from overseas “to help plug any gaps”.
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