Media release

Northland specialists concerned for patients

Northland senior doctors today expressed concern about the impact recruitment and retention problems are having on the care and treatment of Northland people. Many people in Northland are in difficult economic circumstances and face high health needs.

And this morning’s stopwork meeting involving senior doctors from the Northland DHB overwhelmingly supported holding a vote on whether to take industrial action.

The meeting is the fourth in a series of unprecedented stopwork meetings that started on Tuesday. The nationwide meetings have been called to discuss action after fruitless negotiations for a year. Senior doctors say that salaries and other conditions of work have led to grave difficulties in recruiting and retaining specialists in the public hospital system.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Executive Director Ian Powell says all of the meetings so far have given the green light to holding a postal ballot of members on taking lawful national industrial action; a move senior doctors have never before taken.

He says there was standing room only in Northland with close to 100% of those able to attend turning out for the meeting.

“In addition to the other resolutions, this group of senior doctors wanted to be explicit about the impact of what is going on.”

He said the meeting passed a resolution expressing its concern about the serious crisis affecting the ability to recruit and retain senior doctors and dentists in Northland and the affect on the right of Northland patients to receive the care and treatment they deserve.

And in a further step, senior doctors at the meeting also resolved to send a message that the entire New Zealand medical workforce is in crisis.

“There was overwhelming support for a postal ballot of members on taking lawful industrial action and to reject the DHBs’ proposal from July 5.

“The meeting unanimously condemned the DHBs’ failure to negotiate genuinely and its failure to reach a national collective agreement that addresses New Zealand’s vulnerability in retaining its medical workforce.”

Ian Powell says the Northland senior doctors joined their colleagues in Gisborne in rejecting the DHBs apparent decision to unilaterally withdraw from mediation with the ASMS and to instead call for pseudo arbitration.
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“Northland senior doctors agree that this is just a con job but are heartened that the call for arbitration showed the DHBs recognise that they can afford our position – otherwise they wouldn’t be prepared to take the risk of arbitration.”

The next stopwork meeting will involve senior doctors at Tauranga Hospital in the Bay of Plenty DHB and will be held tomorrow (Friday).

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