Two West Coast Senior Doctor Stopwork Meetings

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ATTENTION: HEALTH REPORTER

MEDIA STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,
THURSDAY 28 JUNE 2007

“Two West Coast Senior Doctor Stopwork Meeting Confirmed”

“The date of two senior doctor stopwork meeting in the West Coast District Health Board has been confirmed as part of the unprecedented national stopwork meetings over the impasse in the national collective agreement negotiations with the 21 DHBs,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today. This is not strike action and emergency cover will continue to be provided.

“The West Coast DHB has been formally notified that there will be a two-hour stopwork meeting on in Greymouth on Friday 27 July commencing at 1pm and in Westport on Tuesday 31 July commencing at 10am.”

“The impasse in negotiations is caused by the failure of the DHBs to recognise the severity of New Zealand’s increasing difficulty in recruiting and retaining quality senior doctors. West Coast is in already in a precarious position and is in the unenviable position of being forced to use the much more expensive option of engaging locum doctors.”

“The DHB has deliberately been given much more notice than the legal two week requirement in order that DHBs will not schedule operations and clinics during these periods of time so that patient inconvenience is minimised and as much as possible no patient faces the cancellation of scheduled appointments or procedures,” concluded Mr Powell.

Ian Powell

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

ENDS

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