N.S.W. doctors to strike

Press, 22 October 1984, Page 6

N.S.W. doctors to strike

NZPA-AAP Sydney New South Wales visiting surgeons had voted unanimously to withdraw their services from public hospitals by October 27, the state branch of the Australian Medical Association announced yesterday. The state president, Dr Anthony Buhagiar, said that the indefinite strike action would affect all but emergency services. The action, which he recommended, had been accepted unanimously by members at a meeting yesterday. Dr Buhagiar said, “We feel the withdrawal of services is reasonable action to take in order to allow the Government time to decide if it wants to restore justice.

“The Government has refused to negotiate fee-for-service for visiting surgeons throughout N.S.W. and restore doctors’ incomes to the level they were prior to the introduction of Medicare.”

Specialist surgeons were being paid ?Austso an hour by the state Government for their services in public hospitals. These surgeons rarely worked more than 4% hours a week in public hospitals, and so their incomes had been cut to about ?Aust2so a week, he said. “It is grossly unfair that the Government should slice doctors’ fees,” he said. By late last week more than 80 surgeons had resigned from 22 of the state’s 270 public hospitals, all of them members of the Australian Association of Surgeons or the New South Wales Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons. The surgeons resigned over what they said was the state Government’s failure to allow them to set their own rates of pay in public hospitals. The state’s Health Minister, Mr Ron Mulock, said yesterday that it was absurd for doctors to strike over a fee-for-service claim when they had not even seen the Federal Health Minister, Mr Neal Blewett. Mr Mulock said that the state Government had delivered on all promises made during talks with the doctors’ negotatiating committee set up in July, but it had no power to act on fee-for-service claims.