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100 comments highlight hospital inequities
17 October 2008
The Doctors4Hospitals campaign blog, set up by AMA Victoria to explore pay and working conditions of hospital medical employees, has reached a milestone with its 100th entry. The blog has been in operation since early last month.
AMA Victoria President, Dr Doug Travis, said the blog reflected many of the stories that he hears regularly. “These are real stories, real concerns, being articulated by doctors working on the front line every day.
“There’s a clear message — there are plenty of unhappy doctors in a stressed public hospital system.”
Correspondents have highlighted the excessive hours worked—some whose workload exceeded 80 hours in a week—doctors disregarded in decision-making processes, and the pay disparity where they are earning less than their colleagues in every other state.
Many have mentioned that they have been forced to work long hours of overtime and hospital administrations have refused to pay for it.
Several have said that when they finished their training they would move interstate and a few were planning to move during training. Others said they planned to leave the public system.
An overwhelming majority of the contributors have chosen anonymity as they feared retribution from their employers. A few have bravely put their names forward.
The blog is part of AMA Victoria’s campaign for a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA), to address pay in conditions in public hospitals. Negotiations are progressing slowly.
The blog is available at www.doctors4hospitals.com.au.
The 100th blog entry:
I am an intern in a major Melbourne hospital.
We are paid $23 an hour.
We work 70 hour weeks but are paid for 50.
When we ask administration why we are paid from 8am, not 6am when ward round starts, we are told that they "don't support unsafe work hours" hence refuse to pay the overtime.
However, "unsafe work hours" are conveniently forgotten when we are asked to back up day shifts with night duty at only a few hours notice. We all know that refusing will hinder our chances of re-employment.
In the evening and on weekends, we see ratios of one doctor to over 130 patients.
Here is a sampling of earlier comments from the blog.
- “I have held your underfunded and sadly mismanaged system together through the dark years to its current state. Maybe it needs to collapse for you to take notice Mr Brumby. I can only tell you that it won't take me with it - your free lend of me is up.” (9 Sep 9:43pm)
- “The minute I get out of this so called training I will endeavour never to set foot in a public hospital again.” (12 Sep 5:13pm)
- “In the past 10 years I have seen the system crumble, stress levels rise, the system lurch from one crisis to another” (22 Sep 7:14pm).
- “The system needs more money and more resources to boost moral or the brain drain and exodus of qualified practitioners will continue.” (11 Sep11 10:52am)
- “I hate the medical system and the type of doctor it has turned me into. . .The stress really gets to me sometimes. It's not unusual for me to cry all the way home from work. I don't know how I will survive the rest of the year.” (19 Sep 7pm)
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