Doctors Strike - Right Wrong?

[Paul in NZ]

Centuries actually. Pretty much since they started burning midwives as witches in the 12th Century.

Mind you I don't really object to burning midwives all that much, but Doctors have REALLY lost their way since they came up with that concept, their one good idea to date.

Ah, nothing like settling down in front of a roaring fire in the winter months eh!

Mind you, if we start burning midwives... Well we would soon run out but IF we started burning administrators.. Well, the energy crisis would be over and old people could stay warm all winter. We would need a place to stockpile them over summer though

[Winston001]

I should be doing some work but I cannot let the canard about administrators go by.

Hospitals today are mega enterprises. Patients are the easy part. They have to have a Board, with support services for the members. They have to respond to media questions which means finding out info, tracking down the right answers etc. Deal with ACC, Patients Advocates, the Health Commissioner, police, health and safety, politicians, local interest groups (heart, cancer, stroke etc). Recruit new doctors and nurses, calculate their hours, sick pay, holidays, find locums to fill in, find and arrange specialists to visit, deal with employment law problems, the list goes on and on.

Apart from all that, there are medical supplies to be ordered, equipment to monitor and replace, new treatments/drugs to be considered and decided upon.

Do you really want highly trained doctors and nurses doing all that? It would be an absolute waste of their abilities.

We don't live in a simple world anymore. Hospitals are almost crushed by the administrative burdens.

An example. A friend does press liason for a hospital. There is a plane crash. She gets called down to the hospital at 6:00am on a Saturday morning to deal with TV1, TV3, and press reporters clammering to know about the survivors. I'd have said - sod off - but you can't these days.

Sunday night at home, more journalists ringing about a battered child admitted to the hospital. She knew nothing about it so that was the evening taken care of.

[Pixie]

Michael Cun..sorry..Cullen,recently:
"don't expect a pay increase this year"
like the one I just got

[The_Dover]

So why can't they tell the press to fuck off and mind their own business?

"I'm sorry, we're here to treat sick and injures people so please fuck off and let us do our jobs?"

Most administrators are nothing but a financial burden and added layer of bureaucracy, look at that tart on shortland st.

[junglegirl]

So why can't they tell the press to fuck off and mind their own business?

"I'm sorry, we're here to treat sick and injures people so please fuck off and let us do our jobs?"

Hear! Hear! If it wasnt for the ever watchful pack of vultures known as the news media we would all have much simpler lives. Far too much time is wasted in reporting utter bullshit that many of us have little or no interest in. As for the junior drs, well realistically, any one of them could have gone to a fully qualified dr and been made aware of the conditions that they would be training in. I say tuff bickies. They make a hell of a lot more than your average joe, and yes they deserve it, but they need to pull their heads in and get on with the job inhand instead of risking the health of thousands of peopkle throughout the country that cant do anything to help them.

[Paul in NZ]

I should be doing some work but I cannot let the canard about administrators go by.

Hospitals today are mega enterprises. Patients are the easy part. They have to have a Board, with support services for the members. They have to respond to media questions which means finding out info, tracking down the right answers etc. Deal with ACC, Patients Advocates, the Health Commissioner, police, health and safety, politicians, local interest groups (heart, cancer, stroke etc). Recruit new doctors and nurses, calculate their hours, sick pay, holidays, find locums to fill in, find and arrange specialists to visit, deal with employment law problems, the list goes on and on.

Apart from all that, there are medical supplies to be ordered, equipment to monitor and replace, new treatments/drugs to be considered and decided upon.

Do you really want highly trained doctors and nurses doing all that? It would be an absolute waste of their abilities.

We don't live in a simple world anymore. Hospitals are almost crushed by the administrative burdens.

An example. A friend does press liason for a hospital. There is a plane crash. She gets called down to the hospital at 6:00am on a Saturday morning to deal with TV1, TV3, and press reporters clammering to know about the survivors. I'd have said - sod off - but you can't these days.

Sunday night at home, more journalists ringing about a battered child admitted to the hospital. She knew nothing about it so that was the evening taken care of.

yeah - well - I was gunna say beaurocrats but i couldn't spell it.....

[Lou Girardin]

Next you're going to tell us you want them to speak fluent, comprehensible english too, right Lou?

Keep dreaming...

Que?
10 char

[oldrider]

I made preliminary enquiries for an application for a Senior management position at a DHB facility and the one thing that stood out to me was this issue.
Not their money and conditions as such but the ridiculous hours that they work. (Trouble just waiting to happen, stood out like dog's balls.)
The hours are tradition based not on an as required basis, as far as I could determine, I did not pursue the position.
Other than this I know nothing about the realities of this issue. John.

[madboy]

I can't say I have too much sympathy for the junior doctors. Why do you go into medicine? To help people or to make money?

If you're doing it to help people then stop striking and start helping. The money and working conditions should be irrelevant. You don't see Greenpeace workers striking about how friggin cold the water being sprayed at them from the Japanese whaling ships are, do you?

If you're in it for the money, then stop whinging. Your student loan will be paid off in a few years with your way above average incomes that you'll be on fairly quickly, and then it's all cream from there. Short term pain for long term gain. By 40 most of you will have more money than 95% of society, by 50 you'll be in the 98th percentile... by retirement if you've played it right you'll be top percentile easy.

[Winston001]

The hours are tradition based not on an as required basis, as far as I could determine, I did not pursue the position.
John.

Exactly. The junior doctors managed to negotiate over-staffing and long hours years ago. The hospital boards now want to be flexible about staffing levels.

Incidentally the "hours" on shift are 50 - 58/week for a junior doctor. I can believe they do 70 hours sometimes but it isn't the norm.

Interestingly enough, about 50% of doctors are at work in Auckland and a fair percentage elsewhere. There isn't the support that Deborah Powell makes out.

Furthermore she is an independant contractor. She isn't a practising young doctor herself. This is (apparently) her career - union negotiator for doctors. Essentially she is a legal representative who needs to win. Thats ok, but lets be open about it.

[Pathos]

This is capitalism folks, people should be paid as much as the market can afford. Its up to society to put price on how much they are willing to pay to save peoples lives.

The medical system demands that doctors put their patients at risk as a bargaining tool to contest their pay and working conditions. The administration use this fact to deter strikes.

If you don't like it start a revolution so medical staff are forced to work at a fixed rate, try change the system, or become a doctor.

[metric]

I can't say I have too much sympathy for the junior doctors. Why do you go into medicine? To help people or to make money?

If you're doing it to help people then stop striking and start helping. The money and working conditions should be irrelevant. You don't see Greenpeace workers striking about how friggin cold the water being sprayed at them from the Japanese whaling ships are, do you?

If you're in it for the money, then stop whinging. Your student loan will be paid off in a few years with your way above average incomes that you'll be on fairly quickly, and then it's all cream from there. Short term pain for long term gain. By 40 most of you will have more money than 95% of society, by 50 you'll be in the 98th percentile... by retirement if you've played it right you'll be top percentile easy.

totally agree with all of the above...

it's the same as working as a lawyer in a big law firm, or as a suit at a corporation, the list goes on

as a young blood you've got to put in the long hours, do your time etc

[James Deuce]

I don't know where you guys get the idea the TIs and House Surgeons get paid above average rates.

TIs get between $20,000 and $28,000 a year, depending on DHB. Junior House Surgeons get around $40,000. Most truckies do better than that.

Senior House Surgeons get Police Constable money.

If you want to make money as a Doctor, you become a GP and fiddle your Govt. Subsidy.

[Ixion]

From the NZ Medical Nov 2002

the salaries paid to full-time RMOs in Christchurch are summarised in Figure 2;

• free hospital meals are provided for RMOs, but not for other staff;
• full reimbursements are provided for vocational training expenses;
• the limits on hours and rostering for RMOs include:
• no more than 72 hours’ work in any seven day period;
• must have every second weekend off work and cannot work more than 12 consecutive days;
• no more than 16 hours in any consecutive period unless a special exemption is granted;
• cannot be rostered off during week days.
• leave provisions include:

22 working days’ annual leave;
48 working days’ sick leave provision for the first five years;
12 weeks’ study leave across the training programme (maximum of six weeks a year in the year of the examination);
time in lieu for working any of the 11 public holidays.

Figure 2 is attached, shows modal salary value as $80000 to $89000 pa

[James Deuce]

RMOs are Senior House Surgeons and Registrars.

We're talking TIs and Junior House Surgeons, and the ones I know at the Hutt do not have packages like that.

Vocational Training is not paid for, meals are not free, they do not earn overtime, and only get one weekend a month free.