<\/p>\n
\nOne 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.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Kim Baker Wilson\n<\/p>\n
Senior doctors picketing outside Minister of Health Simeon Brown’s electorate office have covered a message in the minister’s window with placards.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), including 6000 senior doctors and dentists, are on strike for 48 hours<\/a> after a break-down in failed pay negotiations.<\/p>\n In the lead-up to the strike Brown openly criticised doctors<\/a> 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”.<\/p>\n 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”.<\/p>\n Doctors hit back with equally thorny messages: “Code Brown, Simeon’s in charge”, read one placard.<\/p>\n Another said: “We serve interests of New Zealanders. Do you?”.<\/p>\n 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”.<\/p>\n \nThe senior doctors strike in Auckland. It comes after some nurses turned their backs on Brown during a speech<\/a> he made last week to New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) delegates in Wellington.<\/p>\n The impromptu mini-protest came two weeks after 36,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants walked off the job for two days<\/a> in a strike for better pay and increased staffing.<\/p>\n Brown shrugged off the frosty reception at the conference and doubled down on his criticism that strike action hurt patients.<\/p>\n 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”.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Junior doctors went on strike in May last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n \nSenior Doctors Strike in Auckland. In an unprecedented move, Health New Zealand has applied to the Employment Relations Authority<\/a> to “fix” the terms of its contract with the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.<\/p>\n Strike demands are in the interests of New Zealanders’ health, striking doctors say<\/p>\n Auckland Hospital doctor Helen Pilmore was one of about 100 picketers outside Simeon Brown’s electorate office in Pakuranga on Tuesday.<\/p>\n She said that at 60 years old, she worked 60 hours a week because they don’t have enough doctors to look after patients.<\/p>\n She said the sign minister Brown had put up at his office was a slap in the face.<\/p>\n “The sign says ‘thank you to all our doctors who are working today’. Well Mr Brown, I worked last night. I was on-call last night, so I kind of theoretically have worked today.<\/p>\n “I’m standing here in the rain because I want all Kiwis to be able to access public health care.<\/p>\n “I want you Mr Brown, when you have your heart attack or your stroke – and I hope you don’t, to be able to access public health care because these things are not looked after in private [healthcare].”<\/p>\n She said that in the 30 years she had worked in the sector, now was the “most terrible”.<\/p>\n Geriatrician Andrew Baker said the strike was about more than money, they wanted to be able to provide better services.<\/p>\n “I work in the older adults department and one of the things we help out with is with the diagnosis of cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n “Our waitlist just blows out and we have a responsibility to not have the waitlist blown out so urgent cases are seen. If we don’t get more resources, the only way to manage that waitlist is to cut people off it.<\/p>\n “We get pressured to not accept as many conditions to not have our waitlist blow out, and that just hides the problem.<\/p>\n “We have to say no to people with major problems, like do they have dementia or not.”<\/p>\n Another striking Auckland City Hospital doctor, Deralie Flower, said if understaffing was not resolved now, the health system would continue to get worse.<\/p>\n “We don’t have enough doctors or specialists, that’s the bottom line. We cannot keep people in the country or attract people to the country.<\/p>\n “People are getting their procedures and appointments delayed every single day when we’re not on strike because we don’t have enough doctors to see them. That’s not acceptable, it’s not ok, and it’s not the kind of health system we want in New Zealand.”<\/p>\n \nProtesters at the senior Doctors Strike in Auckland. Wairarapa doctor Niels Dugan is picketing outside the office of Wairarapa MP Mike Butterick.<\/p>\n Dugan told Midday Report one of the reasons for the strike was to support colleagues.<\/p>\n “In some of the hospitals around New Zealand the staff are doing it hard.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n Pay and conditions are also of concern, he said.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n Dugan said a “fair number” of New Zealand graduates and junior doctors in their early training were heading across the Tasman.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n \nAt the Auckland protest on Tuesday. 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.<\/p>\n “All the doctors here (Wairarapa) are from overseas, the majority of them anyway.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n Brown blamed the union for the stalemate, after it refused his recent request for it to enter binding arbitration.<\/p>\n “The ASMS union is putting politics ahead of patients, while Health New Zealand continues to engage in good faith,” he said.<\/p>\n 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”.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Kim Baker Wilson \/ RNZ\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Kim Baker Wilson \/ RNZ\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Kim Baker Wilson \/ RNZ\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Kim Baker Wilson \/ RNZ\n<\/p>\n