Junior doctors want changes

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 1

Junior doctors want changes

By

CINDY BAXTER

Health reporter

Junior doctors have sought an urgent meeting with the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, to discuss claims for a reduction of hours, “reasonable" overtime pay, and an improved negotiating system. A member of the national negotiating committee of the Resident Medical Officers' Association. Dr Boyd Swinburn, said in Auckland last evening that the working conditions faced by junior doctors were “an intolerable relic of bvgone days." The conditions were detrimental to the health, competence, and general life of

the junior doctor and represented, “in the form of sleep-deprived doctors,” decreased patient service and care. The national executive formed the negotiating committee, at a meeting on May 24, to co-ordinate the national efforts on junior doctors’ working conditions. The committee formulated a proposal yesterday which was put to Dr Bassett, he said. The claims were for: • "A reduction of working hours to safe, acceptable levels. • “Reasonable overtime payments which pay junior doctors for overtime hours they work and which serve as a deterrent to our em-

ployers so that they do not employ us for long hours. © “An effective negotiating mechanism for 1985 onwards.” Dr Swinburn said that these claims were general, and that the details would be put to Dr Bassett when the association’s committee met him. Dr Swinburn said that the doctors did not want to strike. If their demands were not met, however, they would begin what he termed national direct action against non-urgent services. Dr Swinburn said that junior doctors worked long hours because their employers did not have to pay them normal overtime pay." Overtime pay ranged, an

hour, from 4 per cent to 40 per cent of a doctor’s normal salary, he said. The doctors’ negotiating body, the Hospital Medical Officers’ Advisory Committee. was not satisfactory, he said. It comprised six members of the Medical Association, and six members of the Hospital Boards’ Association. “The pattern over the last 12 years is that we have put up' proposals, the officials have not agreed with them, and it has reached a six-all deadlock.” said Dr Swinburn. “The Health Department then does a survey, which usually takes about two years, and we end up with a

few peripheral agreements, but the basic award stays the same.”

Any negotiating body would certainly need to have some independence from the Health Department, he said. The problem was that the department ended up being the arbitrator and the employer. “We are going to need independent arbitration that is binding. That will be the first step.” said Dr Swinburn.

Dr Bassett said in Wellington last evening that he would ask the Health Department to deal with the doctors’ requests urgently. He said he would be prepared to meet the doctors at the earliest opportunity.