“Whakatane Senior Doctors Resolve To Refer Dispute Over Onerous Working Conditions To Mediation”
“Whakatane senior doctors employed by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board have decided to refer their dispute with
management over onerous working conditions to mediation in an effort to find a way through the impasse,” said Mr Ian
Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today. This was a unanimous decision of
the 2-hour stopwork held yesterday.
“The unanimous resolve of senior doctors is that they should not have to work these high frequency emergency rosters
because of the serious risk to the health and safety to their patients and to themselves. They would prefer that
Whakatane Hospital was better staffed to avoid these risks and that the increased compensation being sought was at most
only for exceptional circumstances rather than the current common place situation.”
“The stopwork meeting was well attended and achieved its purpose of sending a positive message to management of how
serious the unsafe working conditions at Whakatane Hospital are,” concluded Mr Powell.
Ian Powell
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR