MEDIA STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,
Tuesday 26 June 2007

Nelson And Blenheim Senior Doctor Stopwork Meeting Confirmed

"The dates of the two senior doctor stopwork meeting in the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board have 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 Nelson Marlborough DHB has been formally notified that there will be two 2-hour stopwork meeting on Wednesday 1 August commencing at 9am in Nelson and Thursday 2 August commencing at 10am in Blenheim. Up to around 100 senior doctors will be involved, nearly 80 in Nelson and over 20 in Blenheim."

"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. Both Nelson and Blenheim are particularly vulnerable to aggressive recruitment campaigns from Australia seeking to attract senior doctors across the Tasman by offering significantly superior terms and conditions of employment."

"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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