Senior Doctor Stopwork Meetings Confirmed

THURSDAY 21 JUNE 2007

“Wellington And Hutt Valley Senior Doctor Stopwork Meetings Confirmed”

“The dates of the senior doctor stopwork meetings in Wellington and Hutt Valley have been confirmed as part of the unprecedented national stopwork meetings over the impasse in the national collective agreement negotiations with district health boards,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today. This is not strike action and emergency cover will continue to be provided.

“The Hutt Valley and Capital & Coast DHBs have been formally notified that the two hour stopwork meetings will be held on Monday 23 July commencing at 1.30pm and Wednesday 25 July commencing at 10am respectively.”

“The impasse is over the failure of the DHBs to recognise the severity of New Zealand’s increasing difficulty in recruiting and retaining quality senior doctors. This difficulty is made worse by aggressive competition from Australia which has significantly increased terms and conditions of employment for senior doctors in response to their own shortages. It is already evidenced by the serious difficulties facing the anaesthesia department at Wellington Hospital which is affecting the whole lower North Island region.”

“The two DHBs have deliberately been given much more notice than the legal two week requirement in order that DHBs will not schedule operations and clinics during these periods of time so that patient inconvenience is minimised and no patient faces the cancellation of scheduled appointments or procedures,” concluded Mr Powell.

ENDS

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