One of the protesters outside Simeon Brown’s electorate office has used a ladder to cover the Health Minister’s message in his window with their own placards.
Photo: RNZ / Kim Baker Wilson
Senior doctors picketing outside Health Minister Simeon Brown’s electorate office have covered a message in the Minister’s window with placards.
It comes as one senior doctor told RNZ Kiwi patients in regional and rural areas can no longer expect to be treated by a New Zealand-trained senior doctor.
Members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) including 6000 senior doctors and dentists are on strike for 48 hours after a break-down in failed pay negotiations.
In the lead-up to the strike Brown openly criticised doctors who “chose” to strike, calling it “a decision by some of the most well-paid public servants in New Zealand to walk away from patients and cancel care”.
On Monday morning a pointed message in the Minister’s electorate office greeted striking doctors: “Thank you to all our doctors who are working today”.
Doctors hit back with equally thorny messages: “Code Brown, Simeon’s in charge”, read one placard.
Another said: “We serve interests of New Zealanders. Do you?”.
Before lunch one protester used a ladder to climb up to the window where he covered the message with placards that read: “Invest in our health”.
Senior Doctors Strike in Auckland.
Photo: Kim Baker Wilson / RNZ
It comes after some nurses turned their backs on Brown during a speech he made last week to New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) delegates in Wellington.
The impromptu mini-protest came two weeks after 36,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants walked off the job for two days in a strike for better pay and increased staffing.
Brown shrugged off the frosty reception at the conference and doubled down on his criticism that strike action hurt patients.
During the nurses strike Brown also had a message in his office window for those picketing outside: “NZNO union strike disrupts more than 13,000 surgeries and appointments”.
The senior doctors’ strike, which began just after midnight on Sunday, is the second one by ASMS members this year, following a 24-hour strike in May.
Junior doctors went on strike in May last year.
Senior Doctors Strike in Auckland.
Photo: Kim Baker Wilson / RNZ
In an unprecedented move, Health New Zealand has applied to the Employment Relations Authority to “fix” the terms of its contract with the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.
Wairarapa doctor Neils Dugan is picketing outside the office of Wairarapa MP Mike Butterick.
Dugan told Midday Report one of the reasons for the strike was to support colleagues.
“In some of the hospitals around New Zealand the staff are doing it hard.
Senior Doctors Strike in Auckland.
Photo: Kim Baker Wilson / RNZ
“I think it’s important that we stand together. All of us feel very passionately about the public health system as well, which we feel is gradually being undermined.”
Pay and conditions are also of concern, he said.
“We’d obviously like our pay to keep pace with inflation, and ultimately I think it’d be useful if we reach some sort of pay equity with Australia to stop the drain of New Zealand graduates to Australia.”
Dugan said a “fair number” of New Zealand graduates and junior doctors in their early training were heading across the Tasman.
“We haven’t had a New Zealand-trained doctor apply for a senior role here (locally) for many years, even though New Zealand produces about 400 doctors a year.”
Senior Doctors Strike in Auckland.
Photo: Kim Baker Wilson / RNZ
Dugan said from the perspective of patients, that meant if they’re seeking medical care in a small hospital they won’t be treated by a New Zealand-trained doctor.
“All the doctors here (Wairarapa) are from overseas, the majority of them anyway.
“We spend a lot of money on educating doctors and where are they? I think if we had comparable pay and conditions to Australia then I think many more of them would stay.”
Brown blamed the union for the stalemate, after it refused his recent request for it to enter binding arbitration.
“The ASMS union is putting politics ahead of patients, while Health New Zealand continues to engage in good faith,” he said.
Senior doctors were “among the most well-remunerated public servants, with many also working in private practice”, Brown said, with an average pay of $343,500, including overtime and allowances and “generous conditions”.
“Let’s be clear: this strike is a choice. It is a decision by some of the most well-paid public servants in New Zealand to walk away from patients and cancel care.”
He also voiced his disappointment over the union’s refusal to enter binding arbitration and his increasing concern that the two parties had been in negotiations for 12 months with no resolution in sight.
In a letter earlier this month to Health NZ chairperson Dr Lester Levy and the ASMS, Brown said thousands of patients were bearing the impact of this dispute.
“It is time to commit to a pathway that puts the health outcomes of New Zealanders first and provides certainty for patients, specialists, and the wider health system within the context of Health New Zealand’s overall financial situation.”
Health New Zealand said it was out of options.
National clinical director Dr Richard Sullivan, who took part in last-ditch talks last week, said it was frustrating to put forward a new offer and receive “nothing to work with in response”.
Senior Doctors Strike in Auckland.
Photo: Kim Baker Wilson / RNZ
“We are disappointed this is necessary, but we have been in bargaining with ASMS for over a year.
“We have attended 11 days of formal bargaining, a number of informal meetings, mediation, six days of facilitated bargaining and accepted the invitation to binding arbitration, which the union refused.
“We believe all bargaining options have been exhausted and that the application for fixing is the best way forward to ensure certainty for New Zealanders.”
Senior Doctors Strike in Auckland.
Photo: Kim Baker Wilson / RNZ
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