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Victoria safer but not safe enough
Despite significant improvements in the last five years, 61 per cent of junior doctors in Victoria are still working ‘significant’ to ‘high risk’ hours.The release of the 2006 AMA Safe Hours Report has revealed Victorian public hospital doctors’ hours are equal with the rest of Australia, but are still too high according to AMA Victoria President Dr Mark Yates.
“The reduction in the number of doctors working unsafe hours is positive and shows the AMA Victoria Safe Hours campaign and AMA Safe Hours Code of Conduct has helped reduce the number of doctors working ‘high risk’ hours.”
However, Dr Yates said the doctor shortage and pressure to have high through-put of patients in our public hospitals was resulting in many doctors still working unsafe hours.
“In addition, while hours in Victoria may be equal to the rest of Australia, we know Victorian doctors are under more pressure due to the high through-put of patients in Victorian public hospitals.
“Since the last survey in 2001, there has been a positive shift, but it is not enough, more must be done by the State Government and hospitals to address this important issue.
“The average working week for a Victorian public hospital doctor in the high risk category is 77 hours, almost double that of the average worker.
“The survey shows workload for young doctors still needs to be significantly reduced for the benefit of doctors and the people they care for.”
Dr Yates said the reduction in unsafe hours worked by interns and hospital medical officers was pleasing but the sharp increase in high risk hours worked by registrars was of concern.
In addition, he said the lack of change in some specialities such as surgery, which has a high number of doctors working high risk hours, was also a concern.
A strong response was received from Victorian public hospital doctors to the survey with about a third of the total number of respondents being from Victoria.
“This shows that doctors in Victoria are keen to ensure the safe hours campaign is continued and monitored,” Dr Yates said.
The AMA audit of junior public hospital doctors hours was conducted during the week May 8-14, 2006.The survey classifies hospital doctors according to three levels of risk of fatigue
1. lower risk
2. significant
3. higher
The results found in Victoria included:
• 61% of Victorian hospital doctors fall into significant (45%) and higher (16%) risk categories
• Longest reported working week during the audit period - 107 hours
• Longest reported shift during the audit period - 37 hours
• Average weekly working hours for doctors in the higher risk category was 77 hours.
Victorian Medical Directory
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