Senior doctors call on Health Minister to support safe staffing accord in public hospitals

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) is calling on Health Minister David Clark to support the development of a safe staffing accord with senior doctors and dentists working in public hospitals.

“Hospital specialists, like nurses and other frontline health workers, continue to suffer from high workloads caused by years of under-resourcing and neglect of the public health system, and problems with high levels of burnout and specialists working while sick and infectious,” says ASMS Executive Director Ian Powell.

“We now have a 50% burnout rate of specialists, high levels of job dissatisfaction, an approximate one-fifth of specialists right now, and to be made even worse by and 25% of specialists intending to leave public hospitals over 5 years.

“This is neither sustainable nor fair, and it is not good for patient care. One way of making meaningful progress to address these problems would be through an accord between ASMS, the country’s 20 district health boards, and the Ministry of Health.”

Delegates at the ASMS Annual Conference in Wellington voted unanimously in favour of a resolution calling on the Minister of Health to actively support the ASMS initiative for a safe staffing according covering DHB-employed senior doctors and dentists between ASMS, the Ministry of Health, and the 20 DHBs.

“This is a clear message to the Minister from some of the most senior doctors in the country, and we urge him to actively support an accord that will help ensure safe levels of SMO staffing.

“Dr Clark playing a constructive leadership role in ensuring a safe staffing accord for nurses. All we are asking is that does something similar for overworked, over stressed and burnt out senior doctors.

“This is a crisis that the Minister of Health has inherited from the former government. But if he does act soon and become part of the solution, he will become responsible for the crisis and he will become a central cause of the problem”

ENDS

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