Junior doctors back end to talks

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 9

Junior doctors back end to talks

Canterbury junior doctors yesterday voted unanimously to support the action of their negotiating committee which last week broke off talks with the Health Department on working conditions. The president of the Canterbury branch of the Resident Medical Officers’ Association, Dr Mark Jeffrey, said last evening that the meeting had been to explain the breakdown in negotiations with the department. Dr Jeffrey said he would attend an executive meeting of the association in Wellington on Friday morning.

At that meeting, the doctors would decide how to

approach the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, whom they would meet at 2 p.m. Dr Jeffrey would not comment on whether the Canterbury doctors were prepared to take industrial action if the meeting with Dr Bassett was not satisfactory. A spokesman for the association, Dr Murray Wiggins, told the Press Association yesterday that although the doctors, the department, the State Services Commission, and the Health Services Personnel Commission had reached agreement in principle on a 60-hour working week, the department had, to some extent, backed down on this.

Little progress had been made on an increase in overtime rates, he said. One of the problems recognised by both sides in the talks was that a reduction in hours would mean that more junior doctors would have to be employed to make up the shortfall. A sub-committee of the association was considering several ways to solve the problem which included training more doctors, importing doctors from overseas, and improving rostering. He said that the association did not feel it could come up with specifics—making up the shortfall in hours was a matter for the department and individual

hospital boards. The main problem for junior doctors was overwork. The association had hoped to see a reduction in hours implemented during the first six months of next year. A spokesman for Dr Bassett said the Minister realised that the hours junior doctors worked were intolerable, and a reduction was a top priority. The Minister also wanted to see a “more generous” overtime payment, but it would not be at a level which would greatly inflate salaries, he said. Junior doctors could not hope for a big increase in salary in a period of restraint.