Hospital operations will be impacted as thousands of senior doctors and dentists go on strike on Tuesday. Photo / Michael Cunningham
A senior doctors strike will go ahead tomorrow after the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) union rejected the latest offer from Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand.
The union is asking for an “inflation-adjusted” pay increase for its members and has disputed Te Whatu Ora’s comment that its “very fair and improved offer” in mediation on Friday had “essentially” met the union’s claim.
It comes after striking Tauranga Hospital cardiologist Dr Dean Boddington described the working conditions for specialists as “intolerable”, saying he would probably move into the private sector fulltime - or to Australia - if the “abusive” public health system did not change. He said the strike was more about working conditions than pay.
The first strike will take place tomorrow from 12pm to 2pm at public hospitals and other health facilities where senior medical officers work. A second strike would follow on September 13 from 10am to 12pm and the union has signalled a four-hour strike would follow.
Among the more than 5000 senior doctors and dentists employed by Te Whatu Ora and expected to strike nationwide would be 207 union members in Tauranga, 47 in Whakatāne, 96 from Rotorua Hospital and six at Taupō Hospital.
Te Whatu Ora said in a media release on Sunday about 250 planned care procedures nationally will be deferred because of the strike. Outpatient appointments will also be impacted. Doctors would still attend to life or limb-threatening emergencies if required during the strikes.
In the release, Te Whatu Ora chief people officer Andrew Slater said in the release it was “frustrated and extremely disappointed” that the ASMS was “refusing” to take its latest settlement offer to members for consideration..
“Each time Te Whatu Ora has revised its offer to reach a settlement, including a very fair and improved offer made on [September 1], which essentially meets the union’s claim,” Slater said.
This included earlier pay increases than previously offered, which would cost an extra $16 million, he said.
The offer would give senior doctors and dentists salary increases over the next year of between 7 per cent and 12.9 per cent, amounting to between $15,000 and $26,000, he said.
Slater said growing the medical workforce would “take time” and was not a “quick fix”.
“We have put all that we can on the table. To invest more would involve having to make funding reprioritisations elsewhere.”
Slater said it had made a “significant commitment” to review terms and conditions across the senior medical workforce and to start removing remuneration inconsistencies hanging over from the former district health board system.
He said Te Whatu Ora was committed to working with senior doctors and dentists to address the pressures they faced.
Slater said a “protracted dispute” would distract from finding solutions to “workforce challenges”.
“Despite this, the union has rejected the improved offer and our already-stretched workforce is now faced with contingency planning for strikes, which will disrupt the delivery of planned surgical care.
“Our door remains open to discuss how to reach a settlement.”
ASMS chief executive Sarah Dalton told the Bay of Plenty Times the union was “still talking” with Te Whatu Ora.
She said Te Whatu Ora had not yet met its claim for an “inflation-adjusted increase when you look at it annualised”.
“What they are claiming is across the whole term - we asked for a 12-month term. They’re offering a 17-month term. The percentages they are claiming don’t stack up.
“If they had offered our members a 12 per cent increase, we would’ve taken it.”
Dalton said the union questioned the figure provided by Te Whatu Ora of the average salary package of $318,000.
“Many of our members have contacted us and said, ‘Wow, I’d love to be earning that much money’.”
Dalton said it appreciated some doctors were “quite well paid”, but the union’s salary scale went from $170,000 to $250,000 for a specialist.
“It takes 15 years practising as a specialist to reach the top of that scale. And there are states in Australia where a year-one specialist can be earning more than the top of our scale.”
The health system relied “heavily” on overseas-trained specialists, who made up nearly half of the senior medical and dental workforce.
“Vacancies are now sitting for very long periods of time unfilled because nobody is applying for those jobs anymore,” Dalton said.
“If the most important thing is to have enough staff in our hospitals, and we think it is, then we need to make sure basic terms and conditions will keep people here and will attract people here.”
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.