You may have heard NSW Doctors are striking right now.
As someone who’s both a doctor, on a chair, and also someone who’s had leukaemia, bone marrow transplants, open heart surgery, and so much more – someone who has to go to hospital a lot… Making sure the people who keep us safe are healthy and happy themselves is very important to me.
But I know what you’re thinking… Why are these rich aas doctors asking for a pay rise?
Watch a video summary of this blog post here
Well first off, they’re not all rich. As junior doctors, we make $38 an hour. That is more than many, but consider that this is after studying 5-10 years where we earned nothing, that we gave up our 20s, or 30s, and that we work 50-80 hour weeks while being bullied into not claiming overtime. It doesn’t go much higher than that for a while during speciality training – which is when most of us are getting married, starting families and buying houses.
Second – because we’re getting paid 30% less than other states, doctors are leaving NSW. . And it’s not theoretical. I personally know several classmates who went to Queensland and Victoria despite wanting to stay here because the pay, staffing, hours and safety are better there. More doctors are spending more time in private practice as practicing in the public, where you earn less, and are treated worse and worse, doesn’t make sense.
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And it’s not theoretical. I personally know several classmates who went to Queensland and Victoria despite wanting to stay here because the pay, staffing, hours and safety are better there. More doctors are spending more time in private practice as practicing in the public, where you earn less, and are treated worse and worse, doesn’t make sense. There are over 900 trainee positions vacant in NSW. 29% of trainee psychiatry positions are vacant. And trainees do a LOT of the day-to-day work in hospitals.
This also means NSW health ends up spending more than any other state by far on locum (casual, fill in) doctors – with rates rising even more as frozen wages from COVID-19 persist, while costs of living, and workloads increase. Locums make 2-3x more per day. Junior doctors are turning to locumming more and more, which is fuelling concerns, as less are continuing in their speciality training programs. But can you blame them?
We have the lowest rate of doctors to patients in the country – 2285 FTE per 100,000 vs 2874 in the Northern Territory, meaning doctors here have to work more, and see more patients in the same time, meaning they’re tireder and more likely to miss things when they’re treating us.
And finally, our doctors have been struggling. They had wages frozen, not getting JobKeeper, while putting their lives on the line during COVID – it’s the right thing to do. This has led to a 5% increase in attrition of the entire healthcare workforce – not just doctors. 40% of doctors plan to leave in the next 5 years, which is SCARY.
Backing doctors, is backing all of us. So please, bring this up to your politicians, comment on social media, and talk about this, and other actions our nursing, and other colleagues are campaigning for too. It means a lot when you do!
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