Patient safety could be compromised

Senior doctors say patient safety could be compromised

Senior doctors at one of the busiest emergency care hospitals in the southern hemisphere say patient safety will be compromised if the Government does not intervene in the health workforce crisis.

About 150 hospital specialists working for Counties-Manukau District Health Board met today at Middlemore Hospital, Auckland. The meeting was the latest in a series of stopwork meetings held by senior doctors who have reached an impasse with District Health Boards over negotiations for a new national collective agreement..

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell says the meeting was the biggest yet and those present sent a clear message to Government. It was also the biggest that most specialists could recall.

“The meeting passed a resolution stating that it was of the view that if significant intervention at DHB and Government level did not occur patient safety will be compromised as a consequence of the current and escalating workforce crisis in New Zealand hospitals.

“The resolution continued by saying that responsibility for this deterioration in patient safety will lie fairly and squarely with the Minister of Health, the Ministry and DHBs.”

The resolution, which came from the floor, was passed with overwhelming support, Ian Powell says.

Middlemore Hospital has been described as the busiest acute care hospital in the Southern Hemisphere and Ian Powell says it was an indication of the strength of feeling of senior doctors that virtually every senior doctor who was not involved in emergency care attended the stopwork meeting.

As with all seven stopwork meetings held so far Counties-Manukau senior doctors overwhelmingly supported holding a vote to decide if they should as a group take lawful industrial action. Senior doctors have never before held national stopwork meetings or taken national industrial action.

Those attending the meeting were unanimous in their rejection of the DHBs’ current offer and also in their condemnation of the DHBs’ failure to negotiate genuinely and its failure to reach a national collective agreement.

The next stopwork meeting is tomorrow in Wellington involving senior doctors working for Capital Coast DHB.

ENDS

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