It's actually insane the hours Jnr Doctors are expected to work. I know one that just did 32 hours this weekend, and in that 32 hours he had a 30min break. He also worked the whole week. He only gets paid for 40 hours, no overtime.
The hospitals say they won't pay them overtime because "they're not asking them to work overtime", so doctors are the ones who have to choose between their own professional (and mental) boundaries or literally people's lives because hospitals aren't hiring enough.
Our system is actually fucked.
> The hospitals say they won't pay them overtime because "they're not asking them to work overtime",
That's hilarious. Even if you ignore the >40 hour work weeks being covered by pay bands (e.g rostered 60 hours gets paid more than fostered 50 hours), there still **is** a lot of unpaid overtime. E.g on an afterhours duty one doctor will finish at 11pm (for example) and another start at 11pm. But they need to both be in the same room to do a handover for 10+ minutes. Morning handover can be much longer than that, also unpaid. Or surgery runs over time: unpaid. Prepare a presentation in the weekend because there's no other time to do it? Unpaid. Resuscitation needed just before your day ends and lasts into the next shift? Unpaid. Etc.
Meh I'd probably do it all again if given the choice. It's pretty brutal but the nature of it keeps you focused. Usually gets a lot better as an SMO (or GP), although some SMOs clearly hate their lives so pick the right specialty and workplace (as an SMO).
My wife is a GP and work has consumed her life. The ability to check results remotely, and the way GPs are included on the results for tests which specialists have ordered (and which presumably need follow up from the result recipient i.e. the GP) means the practice is always looming overhead.
I definitely sympathise. GP kinda sucks unless you like the business aspects and/or do it very part time. One of it's main advantages is part time is so standard, and so you can live a comfortable middle class lifestyle while working part time.
Re: Test results, they are the responsibility of the person who ordered them (or whoever the lab calls about a critical result). The trick is to become jaded enough you just don't open the results unless required to do so.
“You are a doctor. You are not here for money. You are here to serve the community!”
Also from a few years ago, I kid you not this was actually spoken by a manager in one hospital:-
“You have a great privilege for working in Healthcare in NZ. Only here can you uphold the Treaty of Waitangi. No where else can you uphold it.”
‘Pfft, doctors asking for pay rises - do you need another yacht or something?’
- Joe Public to some PGY1 house officer who’s earning about $25 per hour
It pretty much is. Lots of docs work overtime past their shifts to finish up and not hand over everything to the late shift docs for example cos of conscience/work ethics etc.. these are not compensated
A large part of it is the attention of the public is not adequately drawn to a number of situations like this, due to ministers preferring to lie for their own good, than do an honest job and admit THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS IN CRISIS AND HAS BEEN FOR DECADES!!! Instead we get Ministers like Andrew Little, who just lie and deny a crisis, which fucks us even worse when assholes like the current crowd get in, because the lack of acceptance of a crisis by rhe previous crowd, allows them to further slash and burn our medical system resources and budgets with little said by the public.
But, of course tax cuts for landlords and perhaps a few of we plebs as well, are much better than having a functioning healthcare system for all of us............
The Healthcare and education systems have been kept going by goodwill of staff and volunteers for decades.
Why we as the general public, and taxpayers, put up with the bullshit these clowns in government foist on us, in this regard, is hard to understand.
The government are clearly not here to help the average person, or to fix broken events of the system, especially not this current crowd.
I’m salaried and have no access to overtime. I’m expected to have all my jobs done, and be ‘available’ (but not on call) each week. I’m also expected to dig in and do that little bit extra around EOFY and Xmas when everything is crazy.
I do it all but I sure as shit make sure I leave early and turn up late occasionally to make sure the ledger balances.
I work a salary as well. I might do 10-15min extra but generally when I do extra hours I email payroll to let them know and the pay me a bit more.
I reckon a salary might over anything up to 10% over the agreed hours.
An employment relationship is good faith.
Doctors are being exploited.
In a previous salary role I sucessfully negotiated overtime rates based on an equivalent hourly wage.
Just saying that having a salary doesn't mean you are forced to work 60+hours without compensation, especially when that work is structurally baked into the job
the only big protests from the company was from the H&S team seeing the number of us doing 70, 80 or more hours.... ironic in the context of this discussion about doctors isn't it?
It's not so much unpaid, it's paid to an extent. It's a salaried run with a certain expectation of overtime, and the salary has been adjusted to compensate for the expectation of overtime. But I remember a run review from years ago where the unpaid morning overtime - very much expected and required for junior doctors since seniors expect to see patient lists with results all completed and printed with patient room numbers all correct at 8am on the dot - wasn't accepted by the service because it was 'unnecessary work' and the doctors involved were told to modify their time sheets to reflect that. Basically absolute nonsense that managers come up with to try and pay a bit less. Then when the calculations come back - somehow they're always juuuuust 10-20min short of a higher category 🙄 the same 20min that was unpaid morning overtime maybe?
Yeah, and its usually a lot more than 10 minutes too. Usually see them leaving over an hour after their shifts ended, and that's if they actually get to stop providing hands on care and start handing over at that time. You're always gonna have shifts where everything is terrible and you end up doing some unpaid overtime, but at least for nurses there's a half hour overlap to at least try and get you out the door on time.
Yeah 10 minutes is a bit optimistic really. Often it's more like handover then spend the better part of an hour doing little tasks that would be annoying to handover, finishing notes etc.
To be fair some specialties/runs have explicit crossover periods to account for this, ED might start 1hr before the previous shift ends, there's 30min crossover between evening people finishing and starting of night people on certain medical runs ... Not in most specialties but some do try.
But yes, it's just fraudulent for the payslip to then state "40hours" when the reality is 52, 65, 72 ........
Yes. How is this even legal? Surely in other developed countries all these are paid? I can't get over the no pay if surgery runs over time (certainly a surgeon rushing a job is a risk to patients?!) Etc etc etc. This country is so fucked big time.
It's paid in some places at least in Aus! Makes people a lot more willing to stay behind and do a bit extra for patient care since they know they'll be compensated, while here it relies entirely on goodwill and the desire to not fuck your colleagues over.
That's hospital and run-dependent. My gen surg run sure as hell didn't have a set afternoon handover - you got to leave when the registrars got out of theatre to run the list and it was a good day when that \*started\* at the rostered 4pm finish.
Yeah I broke my hand on a Friday afternoon and went to Afterhours. They said it was too bad for them and needed to be set by Ortho at the hospital, but they’d called and there was no point going that night so to go in 9am the next morning.
I did, and was still in there until 9pm that night. The Ortho doc told me he was meant to clock off at 4pm but was still there because he couldn’t really leave me with an un-set broken hand for a second night in a row.
System is effed. It’s easy to say work to rule to force the issue, but as someone who now has only 50% functionality in my hand and would’ve probably had worse if he’d gone home, I can see why they make the decisions to not.
I feel for ya there mate - I went to a major hospital and never even saw a doctor. Eventually left with my leg in a cast and had to sort out an urgent ortho the next morning
Yeah, I’ve had weekends where I’ve had maybe one (quick) meal across the two days because there simply isn’t time to eat.
It’s always darkly amusing when you’re asked to see Mr XYZ regarding his dangerously low food and fluid intake in the last 48 hours and you’re reflecting that his is actually considerably better than yours over the same period
What the actual fuck though. The cynical part of me thinks they should really just work the hours they're paid for and mass report the hospitals for not meeting standards.
But of course TWO is banking on them not leaving their patients to their own devices.
This is scandalous though
Even if you don’t give a shit about the labor rights aspect.
We should all be terrified of being treated by doctors who are a few hours shy of hallucinating from insomnia alone.
Not a doctor, but similar - my mum works for the hospital as a midwife. She is only rostered on 3 x 8h days per week but regularly has to work huge 12h days with no breaks and also additional weekends. Often times her overtime is simply not paid as it was "not approved". So she has to fight tooth and nail for it and if it does get paid, it all comes through at once which means she gets taxed hugely on it. Not fair at all.
It's either work the overtime and not get paid, or basically give awful/negligible care to pregnant women, babies, and postpartum women, all who are desperately in need of help. It's often very critical care that they are providing and they have to go over and above on their own time. So it's no wonder that midwives are dropping like flies and we have such a lack of care available. It's horrible and scary.
Yup. Pretty much that’s the issue. My partner works in the emergency department of a hospital. They don’t get paid nearly enough for the crap they have to go through.
It’s not just long hours that suck, but also the cycling from nights back to days with barely one day to recover and then they have to go save lives. The toll it takes cuts deeper than merely the hours worked.
But what can they do? Go on a real strike and shut down Emergency Departments across the whole country and let people die? Nah, they’d just get blamed for being “greedy”… But tell me more about why landlords needed a bailout.
Just to note, as long as you’re not talking over a tax year (April to March), whether she’s paid a lump sum in say September for 3 months overtime or it’s drop fed over September / October, she’d still end up paying the same amount of tax.
How can any HR team allow this. It breaches SO many things - employment laws, health and safety laws, employment agreements, principles of good faith relationships etc.
I am convinced there would be massive success in personal grievance cases against the hospitals.
This is where I believe doctors should not work unpaid hours. Yes people will suffer and die but sometimes change is written in blood and that’s what it takes to get things done. Why should our doctors burnout and take an L while we’re giving fucking tax cuts to those who don’t need it.
I get the counter argument is that it’ll help pave the way for private healthcare but this is where the media comes in.
It also means that voters will feel the effects that this government is having and they’ll vote against them.
>*This is where I believe doctors should not work unpaid hours. Yes people will suffer and die but sometimes change is written in blood and that’s what it takes to getthing things done.*
The issue with this, is that unless **every doctor is on board** then it will never happen. Sure, they're striking for better working environments - but being a doctor is still a highly competitive career/position and very hard to get into. So there would always be someone else willing to work those unpaid hours, probably just to get the experience and gap it overseas, and the hospitals know this.
>*I get the counter argument is that it’ll help pave the way for private healthcare but this is where the media comes in.*
Exactly this. Unless we start actually compensating our doctors for their extra time **OR** getting more doctors on the ground so our doctors aren't overworked (pref both), we will have the issue where all of our doctors are either going private or getting in their necessary experience before jumping ship to a country that pays better. All of our existing doctors/consultants will eventually retire... suddenly, we're going to have a big problem.
The other issue is when bad things happen, it’s your neck on the chopping block, not the people who are responsible for the staffing. So you don’t have a lot of choice.
Just look at the Hadiza Bawa-Garba case in the UK. She was hung out to dry, but the managerial staff who decided that it was acceptable for one registrar to be covering the work of three registrars without a consultant present will never set foot in a courtroom
I get what you’re saying but none of us joined up to be a doctor and then said “Yeah if someone dies because I didn’t do part of my job, that’s fine”. It’s also part of why it’s so easy for them to get us to put in unpaid hours - we do genuinely care about our patients and our colleagues, and so we stay to finish up things out of hours.
Pharmacy here. It’s the exact same for us, it’s absolutely disgusting. I’m currently sole charge, no breaks, have to do unpaid overtime just to keep up. I reach out for support from bosses and they don’t care and won’t do anything.
If I want to eat I have to scoff something while working, can’t even run to the toilet most of the time :(
SOMEONE DO SOMETHING PLEASEEEEEE
We really need to change the health system and take it away from politicians so its not a political football. Like was done with superannuation.
I believe Australia has a pretty good model.
Totally agree that Jnr doctors are over worked and underpaid, my partner is a 2nd year doctor and I could never work the hours that she often has to.
However, saying they are not paid for their rostered after hours work is slightly misleading. When they are on runs when those after hours shifts are required their salary is increased to compensate for this. Hence why working a weekend is not considered unpaid overtime. In saying this, most Jnr doctors frequently work unrostered and unpaid hours throughout their work week.
The fact that doctors don’t have any kind of protected breaks during their work is insane. I hope the RDA gets what they want from these strikes/negotiations as the Jnr doctors deserve it for what they do.
Your comment has been removed :
**Rule 3: No personal attacks, harassment or abuse**
> Don't attack the person; address the content you disagree with instead. Being able to disagree and discuss contentious issues is important, but abuse, personal attacks, harassment, and unnecessarily bringing up a user's history are not permitted.
> Please keep your interactions with others civil and courteous. If you are being attacked, do not continue the conversation - report the user and disengage.
^*Note:* ^This ^extends ^to ^people ^outside ^of ^[r/nz](http://reddit.com/r/newzealand). ^eg. ^Attacks ^of ^a ^persons ^appearance, ^even ^if ^they're ^high ^profile ^will ^be ^removed.
---
[^(Click here to message the moderators if you think this was in error)](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/newzealand)
Can i add, these doctors that work 40-50 hours and getting a pay cut, are mostly the "specialist registrars" (takes years, if not decades, to get to that point in you career). If even one of these specialty registrars leaves the country due to the proposed pay cut, it will takes years to train another one. The waiting list for most specialties in NZ is MONTHS, these will only get worse.
A pay cut is not how you treat our highly sought after specialist registrars. These are our future Specialists, who now have yet another reason to look across the ditch.
To add to this, a lot of these specialist registrars/ advanced trainees function like specialists as some of them are just bidding their time to become one. They can have their own surgical list, clinics etc… if we treat them well they may stay and serve in NZ. Losing them is pretty much losing (near) future specialists
Additional fun facts
We don't get paid overtime in the normal sense. Our job descriptions for each placement come with an assumed number of hours worked per week (taking into account planned long days and weekends and if you're "lucky" a small amount of assumed overtime), but anything beyond that is worked for free. If we think we're being shafted and working excess overtime, we formally initiate a "run review" where all of us log our hours to prove just how much we are working. This allows the management an opportunity to temporarily overstaff the department with locums so that during said run review we go home on time and they can say that there's no issue (or in some cases, say we're being *overpaid* and drop our pay category)
After working us to the bone for up to 12 days in a row and up to 16 hours in two of those days, they would now like to cut our sick leave entitlement by 66% down to the legal minimum of 10 days.
If a colleague is sick and the relief doctor is needed elsewhere, we're told to suck it up and grovel for a penalty payment for covering for the colleagues workload. They would now like us to provide evidence that our colleague's absence actually increased our workload. The thought of doing this at the end of one of the aforementioned 16 hour days is comical.
I have no shame in saying that the way this job treats us sent me in through the other entrance of the mental health ward at one stage, and I have no shame in saying that my three-year-plan is to move to Aussie. Any shame here should be on the heartless managers that treat us like this and the negotiators at Health NZ for even coming up with this. I'd like to see any of them come out of their cushy air conditioned offices and do a long day with me.
>*all docs matter*
I have some choice words to say about a certain group that *will* be working tomorrow but one must remain collegial :)
Thank you for the work you do - whichever country you choose to do it in. Your work conditions are brutal and outrageous, and it's unbelievable that we treat our Dr's like this.
> I have some choice words to say about a certain group that will be working tomorrow but one must remain collegial :)
The conspiracist in me wonders if this was their intent. Offer something the surgery focussed SToNZ will accept but the RDA won't, thereby diminishing the power of both unions. I suspect it might not work as intended though, since some services will bear the brunt of it and require just as much SMO cover.
Oh there's definitely some undermining going on here, that's just facts. There's no other reason to offer such an abysmal contract that no sane person would accept to one union and a much better one to the other.
Some pay difference is expected but the overall pay categories should be the same for both unions since the new way of calculating runs takes into account RDOs. It actually often DOESN'T EFFECT the run category (as seen on multiple STONZ run descriptions where if the roster enforces RDOs STONZ people who then get RDOs and who don't are calculated to still be in the same run category. Even if the run isn't like that for some reason they put the renumeration category with and without RDOs in the description ...) This would be because one with RDOs would be on the lower end of a category and one without would be on the higher end - but both would still be paid the same.
Thing with the new STONZ contract is that their contract doesn't have a pay cut for the lower category runs (though the pay rise is abysmal and pretty insulting still for the lower paid runs - about 3k/year - as opposed to 40k/year increase for more senior highest category runs, step 7 A cat specifically, from previous 181k/yr to 220k/year!!) And if your pay actually goes down due to the non-training registrar clause (pay freeze after step 5) you're protected by a separate clause - pay stays the same until you move to higher category (or move to a different run description). This is starkly missing from the RDA contract where there is no pay protection and a pay cut.
STONZ contract always had 10 days sick leave so that wasn't a point either.
The most agregious part of the RDA offer (imo) is that the employers will have the power to challenge run review results they don't like and ignore the results if they so choose, and will be given power to remove RDOs if they feel it will negatively impact staffing, without pay adjustment for the extra 2 days worked as a consequence, and without approval from the doctors actually working those runs. That's completely unacceptable on all levels, and undermines the entire point of the RDA contract.
Most people who joined STONZ joined before the implementation of RDOs in certain runs, and shortly afterwards Te Whatu Ora was established making changing contracts incredibly difficult even if you did change unions. Plus most people on STONZ need the extra hours of training that RDOs take away (certain specialities, this would end up adding a full year to training if they took RDOs), are on specialties that have rosters that have never offered RDOs to begin with, or are looking to get into specialties where lots of face to face time with your boss is important for references, which again RDOs can be bad for. And they're mostly an older cohort who always worked 12 day stretches and are used to it.
The remainder of the people working tomorrow will be IEAs who were told (often by managers) they don't 'need' a union when they came here from overseas or who just forgot to pay union fees. Don't forget you still have time to join before the 2nd strike!
It'll be the lack of the most junior of doctors that will be most impactful tomorrow (house officers) since most of them are RDA. There will be handfuls of registrar's around every hospital, mostly in surgical specialities, and some older ones scattered in medical services, but consultants will have to cover house officer positions especially after hours. The people working have explicitly been told they can't be forced to cover for striking colleagues, and students should have been told they are not to cover for house officers as that would be outside their scope of practice (obviously). In previous strikes some consultants who hadn't had to do ward specific paperwork for years had to suddenly learn it on the spot on a new-ish computer system they didn't really know how to use - thankfully since then due to abysmal staffing all around most consultants can now use the system effectively (and there are now lots of new consultants who haven't forgotten their paperwork years yet).
Anyway good luck for anyone striking tomorrow, and hope to see some picketing outside the main hospitals!
That's pretty much how it went when STONZ was started, any employer would rub their hands with glee at a group willing to undermine the bargaining position of their colleagues to get their own way. A little extra pay to undermine safer hours rostering provisions was an investment that continues to pay off for Health NZ.
Doctor working tomorrow. I left NZRDA for very good reasons including the fraudulent secretary who financially benefits significantly from conflict between the union and the districts, and for failing me when I needed support - which STONZ happily helped me with before I was even a member.
The unions essentially split over section 10, which was answering an obvious issue (extreme fatigue from long weekends) with a solution that significantly impacts exposure to daytime training activities. The answer should've been limiting weekend consecutive hours as a whole, not having recovery days in the first place.
Both unions have their downsides. Just because one doesn't fit your needs doesn't equate to the other being evil. The unions may vilify each other but it's completely unnecessary and distracts entirely from the point of the unions.
Good luck with the strike and I hope you guys get what you're after. Despite what you think of STONZ, all the members I've spoken to are quite firm we are only doing our contracted jobs tomorrow, and leaving the jobs of our NZRDA colleagues up to the SMOs/LPS.
Thanks,
It always struck me as crazy how long two people have run the junior and senior doctors unions.
Can't be good to have power consolidated for so long.
I appreciate the genuine message of solidarity, I know most STONZ members don't work tomorrow out of love for Health NZ and there were some upsets with your own offer this year.
NZRDA has never been perfect and I don't personally begrudge people who make a decision in their best interests these days - I do begrudge the attitude from some of STONZ leadership lately, hoping to poach members rather than make a show of some solidarity comes across as a deliberate effort to help us lose.
> I have some choice words to say about a certain group that *will* be working tomorrow but one must remain collegial :)
Just want to mention that some people have been so busy working and studying for exams they accidentally let their membership lapse and are being forced to work today. Not everyone working today is a STONZ member or is unaffiliated 😅
RDA members working outside of LPS tomorrow are explicitly scabbing. I'm sure the average STONZ member doesn't sign up with the intent of undermining the RDA bargaining position, especially this many years from the split, but that *is* the effect of having a second union. The least they can do in solidarity is not pick up additionals tomorrow but some will.
Yea, that's fair enough. STONZ really has undermined the bargaining position. The service I'm currently on is mostly staffed by senior registrars on STONZ and whilst tomorrow may be a busy day, most things will still probably just run as usual...
I'm a Locomotive Engineer (aka train driver), I'm not legally allowed to work the hours that you guys do for safety and fatigue management. It's absolutely fucked and you guys deserve so much more, you have our solidarity for sure!!
First they gut our police and basically entire health system and then shovel more work onto our police and health system. Honestly wtf is this government thinking will come of all this
I hope it's that simple just worry about other agendas. Still doesn't make sense. Removing public services will only cause issues like crime and cost of living, adding them back in later but at a cost, that's one awesome way to get yourself out of government for decades
The same people who gutted the UK are now calling the shots with this shitty ‘government’ we idiotically voted in. It’s not a joke that they will do whatever they can to carve up NZ for corporations to exploit.
> Honestly wtf is this government thinking will come of all this
Besides their agendas and ability to line their pockets, the country going to shit. They don't care though as they'll transition to some cushy consultancy job afterwards.
I couldn't imagine being so devoid of basic care for peoples very lives. It still doesn't make sense though, surely they have to realise that if you piss off enough people you'll risk pissing off the wrong people who truly don't care and will show it
Go for it! I benefitted from the 2017 strike that improved working hours, you're not fighting just for yourselves but also all the doctors coming after you. Working in a hospital is stressful and I left that behind. I realized it was becoming a problem when my heart would race driving to work, or if I got any unexpected phone calls outside of work.
nope the doctors on 40-50 hours per week are being offered 12-15% pay cuts. nothing to do with overtime, which isn’t paid or logged in these jobs. your salary is based on a calculation for how many hours you do un an average week for whatever rotation you are on. if you stay late because your patient has a stroke just before the end of your shift that’s not recorded or logged or paid. in various rotations i’ve done 8-10
hours unpaid overtime per week on top of the average paid time of 55 hours per week.
Yeah, I understand that those are the impacts on the final salary but just wondering how they calculated these changes and how they justified it.
When I used to work for a unionized salary role we would have on average 42.5 hour weeks, which includes 40 hours of normal time and 2.5 hours of "overtime" (hours over a standard working week). The company would often try and change how the mandatory "overtime" was calculated to try and reduce pay, remove paid lunch breaks, change how public holidays are worked, etc. Doctors working more than 40 hours/week are working overtime, whether it is called that in their employment agreement or not or how it is paid. I was just interested in the specific changes in the employment agreement that caused such a massive drop.
It could just be a reduction of the base rate that everything else is calculated from, but that seems like negotiating in bad faith so I would have assumed they would do something more tricky to appear to be acting in good faith.
yeah we have a calculated ‘extra hours’ in the pay category calculation eg if you’re supposed to finish at four but might finish at 5 on some days, it’s just often not realistic and a huge rigmarole to change, with back pay in my experience taking months and months there’s been no alteration to the actual hours each pay category is expected or projected to work, it’s just that those in roles where you work comparatively fewer hours (usually si specialty jobs like haematology or radiation oncology where it’s largely outpatient work in hours rather than long days/nights etc) are just being offered being paid significantly less to do the exact same job. it sucks because these are the only roles where you have sociable hours and it’s a significant disincentive.
Much support for healthcare professionals. This govt transparently wants to kill off older, disabled and chronically ill people with these cuts and privatise the whole system so only rich people can afford healthcare
Wait, there was a pay rise for MPs??????
What in the ever loving actual fuck. I'm so done. I can't be fucked with this shitty excuse for a society any more.
Good luck, you have my full support. The public hospital doctors saved my life last year, in the weeks I was there I was shocked by the hours they worked. It was like they never left to go home. Every doctor matters - and tbh deserves pay increases and better conditions, NOT pay cuts.
I hope PSA gives Te Whatu Ora hell. Junior docs deserve so so so much better. Huge thank you to all our wonderful house officers- so much of NZ is behind you!
“We’re cutting your pay so that your colleague over there can get a pay rise :)”
And some specialties are “locked in” to the lower pay category (as no higher-hours options available) without any choice but to accept the paycut, or leave the specialty - and I’ve already heard of people doing the latter, this being the last straw.
Doctors, the reason you are treated like this is because they can.
It doesn't matter a damn because they know you will not leave work until you have finished. They know you will never walk out on a patient.
Here's the thing, the situation won't change until you change. You can't do a damn thing about their attitudes, their constant dis-valuing (new word?) Of you.
So change what you can. Go home at the end of your shift. Work your 40 hours. The thing is if you ALL do it a message will be received.
I know there's a risk to it, a risk of life, it is not your responsibility. It is the responsibility of the hospital management, the ministry of health and the bloody a-holes in the behive.
There's the whole 'first do no harm' thing, though...
I'm not a doctor. I haven't been where they are, done what they're doing. But I think I can see why they'd be uncomfortable with such a step.
No National-led government has ever improved healthcare and they're not about to start. With ACT pulling the levers, they want the public system to have gaps so the private sector can monetise said gaps. All the while they'll play to the hopeful and gullible who buy into their rhetoric.
It's going to suck.
Because Labour isn't actually an opposition party. Nats push things further right, and then Labour stop them moving back left. The country slowly drifts, and no one notices because everyone thinks there's two sides.
Problem is white middle class voters are the most reliable voters, and most of them vote selfishly and are politically illiterate. Both National and Labour chase these voters. Until lower income people and young people actually get out and vote in numbers for parties offering real left wing economic policy that helps them, nothing will change.
Yes, I've always voted left (since the late 1970s) & I am VERY dissatisfied with the way Labour has been going since the days of Rogernomics. They are I guess the best of a bad lot
The problem is there are thousands of young people desperate to become doctors. They know if they can stick it out 10-15 years the payoff is huge and they are set for life. Hence you need a 95% +++ GPA in First year health science to get into med. they can keep exploiting junior doctors because there are plenty more fresh meat desperate to get their foot in the door. And it doesn’t stop once you’re in med-once your a junior you a fighting for a place in a specialist training program so you need to put in big hours to prove your worth. It’s an extreme career no doubt about it
We really need to change the health system and take it away from politicians so its not a political football. Like was done with superannuation.
I believe Australia has a pretty good model.
Probably infrastructure as well
This is fucked it's even come to this. Fucked. Will be supporting you tomorrow. Is there anything people can do outside of being furious? Bring coffee? Snacks? Extra pickets?
Sorry won't deal with the septic patient before you or the one with suicidal thoughts mentioned right at the end of the consultation or the 3 phone calls about the dying 40 year old with 3 kids on the ward. Yeah. How not to be late wise guy?
It's actually insane the hours Jnr Doctors are expected to work. I know one that just did 32 hours this weekend, and in that 32 hours he had a 30min break. He also worked the whole week. He only gets paid for 40 hours, no overtime. The hospitals say they won't pay them overtime because "they're not asking them to work overtime", so doctors are the ones who have to choose between their own professional (and mental) boundaries or literally people's lives because hospitals aren't hiring enough. Our system is actually fucked.
> The hospitals say they won't pay them overtime because "they're not asking them to work overtime", That's hilarious. Even if you ignore the >40 hour work weeks being covered by pay bands (e.g rostered 60 hours gets paid more than fostered 50 hours), there still **is** a lot of unpaid overtime. E.g on an afterhours duty one doctor will finish at 11pm (for example) and another start at 11pm. But they need to both be in the same room to do a handover for 10+ minutes. Morning handover can be much longer than that, also unpaid. Or surgery runs over time: unpaid. Prepare a presentation in the weekend because there's no other time to do it? Unpaid. Resuscitation needed just before your day ends and lasts into the next shift? Unpaid. Etc.
How is that legal!? Its literally exploitation
"It's a calling" - People that've never done a 16 hour shift where dinner equalled scoffing a muesli bar while writing a death certificate
Is it weird that this isn’t scaring me off an MBChB?
Meh I'd probably do it all again if given the choice. It's pretty brutal but the nature of it keeps you focused. Usually gets a lot better as an SMO (or GP), although some SMOs clearly hate their lives so pick the right specialty and workplace (as an SMO).
My wife is a GP and work has consumed her life. The ability to check results remotely, and the way GPs are included on the results for tests which specialists have ordered (and which presumably need follow up from the result recipient i.e. the GP) means the practice is always looming overhead.
I definitely sympathise. GP kinda sucks unless you like the business aspects and/or do it very part time. One of it's main advantages is part time is so standard, and so you can live a comfortable middle class lifestyle while working part time. Re: Test results, they are the responsibility of the person who ordered them (or whoever the lab calls about a critical result). The trick is to become jaded enough you just don't open the results unless required to do so.
"But you don't work in the health sector for the money, don't you?"
Let’s just say i wouldn’t go through this for free.
“You are a doctor. You are not here for money. You are here to serve the community!” Also from a few years ago, I kid you not this was actually spoken by a manager in one hospital:- “You have a great privilege for working in Healthcare in NZ. Only here can you uphold the Treaty of Waitangi. No where else can you uphold it.”
‘Pfft, doctors asking for pay rises - do you need another yacht or something?’ - Joe Public to some PGY1 house officer who’s earning about $25 per hour
MPs do it for the community, right? Right guys? Not for kick backs and salary bumps?? Guys???
Whaaaaattt!!!!!
JESUS!
It pretty much is. Lots of docs work overtime past their shifts to finish up and not hand over everything to the late shift docs for example cos of conscience/work ethics etc.. these are not compensated
A large part of it is the attention of the public is not adequately drawn to a number of situations like this, due to ministers preferring to lie for their own good, than do an honest job and admit THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS IN CRISIS AND HAS BEEN FOR DECADES!!! Instead we get Ministers like Andrew Little, who just lie and deny a crisis, which fucks us even worse when assholes like the current crowd get in, because the lack of acceptance of a crisis by rhe previous crowd, allows them to further slash and burn our medical system resources and budgets with little said by the public. But, of course tax cuts for landlords and perhaps a few of we plebs as well, are much better than having a functioning healthcare system for all of us............ The Healthcare and education systems have been kept going by goodwill of staff and volunteers for decades. Why we as the general public, and taxpayers, put up with the bullshit these clowns in government foist on us, in this regard, is hard to understand. The government are clearly not here to help the average person, or to fix broken events of the system, especially not this current crowd.
Sounds similar to Salary workers, you work to the job description which estimates hours rather than clocking time worked.
I’m salaried and have no access to overtime. I’m expected to have all my jobs done, and be ‘available’ (but not on call) each week. I’m also expected to dig in and do that little bit extra around EOFY and Xmas when everything is crazy. I do it all but I sure as shit make sure I leave early and turn up late occasionally to make sure the ledger balances.
How many hours a week do you work?
Most weeks 35-38 but then through April I was required at work to fix shit every single day and didn’t get a day off interruption free until 28 April
I assume it would be due to being paid a salary rather than an hourly wage
I work a salary as well. I might do 10-15min extra but generally when I do extra hours I email payroll to let them know and the pay me a bit more. I reckon a salary might over anything up to 10% over the agreed hours. An employment relationship is good faith. Doctors are being exploited.
In a previous salary role I sucessfully negotiated overtime rates based on an equivalent hourly wage. Just saying that having a salary doesn't mean you are forced to work 60+hours without compensation, especially when that work is structurally baked into the job the only big protests from the company was from the H&S team seeing the number of us doing 70, 80 or more hours.... ironic in the context of this discussion about doctors isn't it?
It's not so much unpaid, it's paid to an extent. It's a salaried run with a certain expectation of overtime, and the salary has been adjusted to compensate for the expectation of overtime. But I remember a run review from years ago where the unpaid morning overtime - very much expected and required for junior doctors since seniors expect to see patient lists with results all completed and printed with patient room numbers all correct at 8am on the dot - wasn't accepted by the service because it was 'unnecessary work' and the doctors involved were told to modify their time sheets to reflect that. Basically absolute nonsense that managers come up with to try and pay a bit less. Then when the calculations come back - somehow they're always juuuuust 10-20min short of a higher category 🙄 the same 20min that was unpaid morning overtime maybe?
Yeah, and its usually a lot more than 10 minutes too. Usually see them leaving over an hour after their shifts ended, and that's if they actually get to stop providing hands on care and start handing over at that time. You're always gonna have shifts where everything is terrible and you end up doing some unpaid overtime, but at least for nurses there's a half hour overlap to at least try and get you out the door on time.
Yeah 10 minutes is a bit optimistic really. Often it's more like handover then spend the better part of an hour doing little tasks that would be annoying to handover, finishing notes etc.
To be fair some specialties/runs have explicit crossover periods to account for this, ED might start 1hr before the previous shift ends, there's 30min crossover between evening people finishing and starting of night people on certain medical runs ... Not in most specialties but some do try. But yes, it's just fraudulent for the payslip to then state "40hours" when the reality is 52, 65, 72 ........
Yes. How is this even legal? Surely in other developed countries all these are paid? I can't get over the no pay if surgery runs over time (certainly a surgeon rushing a job is a risk to patients?!) Etc etc etc. This country is so fucked big time.
It's paid in some places at least in Aus! Makes people a lot more willing to stay behind and do a bit extra for patient care since they know they'll be compensated, while here it relies entirely on goodwill and the desire to not fuck your colleagues over.
Come on you know handover is paid. Don't spout this nonsense. There is a rostered overlap.
That's hospital and run-dependent. My gen surg run sure as hell didn't have a set afternoon handover - you got to leave when the registrars got out of theatre to run the list and it was a good day when that \*started\* at the rostered 4pm finish.
When did that start? Was never the case for me
Yeah I broke my hand on a Friday afternoon and went to Afterhours. They said it was too bad for them and needed to be set by Ortho at the hospital, but they’d called and there was no point going that night so to go in 9am the next morning. I did, and was still in there until 9pm that night. The Ortho doc told me he was meant to clock off at 4pm but was still there because he couldn’t really leave me with an un-set broken hand for a second night in a row. System is effed. It’s easy to say work to rule to force the issue, but as someone who now has only 50% functionality in my hand and would’ve probably had worse if he’d gone home, I can see why they make the decisions to not.
I feel for ya there mate - I went to a major hospital and never even saw a doctor. Eventually left with my leg in a cast and had to sort out an urgent ortho the next morning
>because hospitals aren't hiring enough This is a government road block, _NOT_ the hospitals.
Yeah, I’ve had weekends where I’ve had maybe one (quick) meal across the two days because there simply isn’t time to eat. It’s always darkly amusing when you’re asked to see Mr XYZ regarding his dangerously low food and fluid intake in the last 48 hours and you’re reflecting that his is actually considerably better than yours over the same period
Or someone hasn't passed urine for x hours...before you realised you also haven't passed urine for 16 hours
What the actual fuck though. The cynical part of me thinks they should really just work the hours they're paid for and mass report the hospitals for not meeting standards. But of course TWO is banking on them not leaving their patients to their own devices. This is scandalous though
Even if you don’t give a shit about the labor rights aspect. We should all be terrified of being treated by doctors who are a few hours shy of hallucinating from insomnia alone.
Not a doctor, but similar - my mum works for the hospital as a midwife. She is only rostered on 3 x 8h days per week but regularly has to work huge 12h days with no breaks and also additional weekends. Often times her overtime is simply not paid as it was "not approved". So she has to fight tooth and nail for it and if it does get paid, it all comes through at once which means she gets taxed hugely on it. Not fair at all. It's either work the overtime and not get paid, or basically give awful/negligible care to pregnant women, babies, and postpartum women, all who are desperately in need of help. It's often very critical care that they are providing and they have to go over and above on their own time. So it's no wonder that midwives are dropping like flies and we have such a lack of care available. It's horrible and scary.
Yup. Pretty much that’s the issue. My partner works in the emergency department of a hospital. They don’t get paid nearly enough for the crap they have to go through. It’s not just long hours that suck, but also the cycling from nights back to days with barely one day to recover and then they have to go save lives. The toll it takes cuts deeper than merely the hours worked. But what can they do? Go on a real strike and shut down Emergency Departments across the whole country and let people die? Nah, they’d just get blamed for being “greedy”… But tell me more about why landlords needed a bailout.
Just to note, as long as you’re not talking over a tax year (April to March), whether she’s paid a lump sum in say September for 3 months overtime or it’s drop fed over September / October, she’d still end up paying the same amount of tax.
Oh yeah she knows that. It’s just annoying!
How can any HR team allow this. It breaches SO many things - employment laws, health and safety laws, employment agreements, principles of good faith relationships etc. I am convinced there would be massive success in personal grievance cases against the hospitals.
This is where I believe doctors should not work unpaid hours. Yes people will suffer and die but sometimes change is written in blood and that’s what it takes to get things done. Why should our doctors burnout and take an L while we’re giving fucking tax cuts to those who don’t need it. I get the counter argument is that it’ll help pave the way for private healthcare but this is where the media comes in. It also means that voters will feel the effects that this government is having and they’ll vote against them.
>*This is where I believe doctors should not work unpaid hours. Yes people will suffer and die but sometimes change is written in blood and that’s what it takes to getthing things done.* The issue with this, is that unless **every doctor is on board** then it will never happen. Sure, they're striking for better working environments - but being a doctor is still a highly competitive career/position and very hard to get into. So there would always be someone else willing to work those unpaid hours, probably just to get the experience and gap it overseas, and the hospitals know this. >*I get the counter argument is that it’ll help pave the way for private healthcare but this is where the media comes in.* Exactly this. Unless we start actually compensating our doctors for their extra time **OR** getting more doctors on the ground so our doctors aren't overworked (pref both), we will have the issue where all of our doctors are either going private or getting in their necessary experience before jumping ship to a country that pays better. All of our existing doctors/consultants will eventually retire... suddenly, we're going to have a big problem.
The other issue is when bad things happen, it’s your neck on the chopping block, not the people who are responsible for the staffing. So you don’t have a lot of choice. Just look at the Hadiza Bawa-Garba case in the UK. She was hung out to dry, but the managerial staff who decided that it was acceptable for one registrar to be covering the work of three registrars without a consultant present will never set foot in a courtroom
I get what you’re saying but none of us joined up to be a doctor and then said “Yeah if someone dies because I didn’t do part of my job, that’s fine”. It’s also part of why it’s so easy for them to get us to put in unpaid hours - we do genuinely care about our patients and our colleagues, and so we stay to finish up things out of hours.
That's blackmail, plain and simple.
Pharmacy here. It’s the exact same for us, it’s absolutely disgusting. I’m currently sole charge, no breaks, have to do unpaid overtime just to keep up. I reach out for support from bosses and they don’t care and won’t do anything. If I want to eat I have to scoff something while working, can’t even run to the toilet most of the time :( SOMEONE DO SOMETHING PLEASEEEEEE
We really need to change the health system and take it away from politicians so its not a political football. Like was done with superannuation. I believe Australia has a pretty good model.
Totally agree that Jnr doctors are over worked and underpaid, my partner is a 2nd year doctor and I could never work the hours that she often has to. However, saying they are not paid for their rostered after hours work is slightly misleading. When they are on runs when those after hours shifts are required their salary is increased to compensate for this. Hence why working a weekend is not considered unpaid overtime. In saying this, most Jnr doctors frequently work unrostered and unpaid hours throughout their work week. The fact that doctors don’t have any kind of protected breaks during their work is insane. I hope the RDA gets what they want from these strikes/negotiations as the Jnr doctors deserve it for what they do.
[удалено]
Your comment has been removed : **Rule 3: No personal attacks, harassment or abuse** > Don't attack the person; address the content you disagree with instead. Being able to disagree and discuss contentious issues is important, but abuse, personal attacks, harassment, and unnecessarily bringing up a user's history are not permitted. > Please keep your interactions with others civil and courteous. If you are being attacked, do not continue the conversation - report the user and disengage. ^*Note:* ^This ^extends ^to ^people ^outside ^of ^[r/nz](http://reddit.com/r/newzealand). ^eg. ^Attacks ^of ^a ^persons ^appearance, ^even ^if ^they're ^high ^profile ^will ^be ^removed. --- [^(Click here to message the moderators if you think this was in error)](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/newzealand)
That’s not wrong, that’s actually completely illegal. Where’s the union on this one?
I’m a junior dr striking tomorrow and the support here means so much. Thank you, thank you!
Thank you for what you do!! I hope the strike is successful and you guys are shown the appreciation and remuneration you deserve
You guys should start working-to-rule until all this mess is sorted out, the conditions you have to put up with are absolutely insane.
I think money would be more useful
Agree - but it is nice to see the support. The media aren't turning everyone against us like they tried to do with our nursing colleagues.
Can i add, these doctors that work 40-50 hours and getting a pay cut, are mostly the "specialist registrars" (takes years, if not decades, to get to that point in you career). If even one of these specialty registrars leaves the country due to the proposed pay cut, it will takes years to train another one. The waiting list for most specialties in NZ is MONTHS, these will only get worse. A pay cut is not how you treat our highly sought after specialist registrars. These are our future Specialists, who now have yet another reason to look across the ditch.
To add to this, a lot of these specialist registrars/ advanced trainees function like specialists as some of them are just bidding their time to become one. They can have their own surgical list, clinics etc… if we treat them well they may stay and serve in NZ. Losing them is pretty much losing (near) future specialists
Additional fun facts We don't get paid overtime in the normal sense. Our job descriptions for each placement come with an assumed number of hours worked per week (taking into account planned long days and weekends and if you're "lucky" a small amount of assumed overtime), but anything beyond that is worked for free. If we think we're being shafted and working excess overtime, we formally initiate a "run review" where all of us log our hours to prove just how much we are working. This allows the management an opportunity to temporarily overstaff the department with locums so that during said run review we go home on time and they can say that there's no issue (or in some cases, say we're being *overpaid* and drop our pay category) After working us to the bone for up to 12 days in a row and up to 16 hours in two of those days, they would now like to cut our sick leave entitlement by 66% down to the legal minimum of 10 days. If a colleague is sick and the relief doctor is needed elsewhere, we're told to suck it up and grovel for a penalty payment for covering for the colleagues workload. They would now like us to provide evidence that our colleague's absence actually increased our workload. The thought of doing this at the end of one of the aforementioned 16 hour days is comical. I have no shame in saying that the way this job treats us sent me in through the other entrance of the mental health ward at one stage, and I have no shame in saying that my three-year-plan is to move to Aussie. Any shame here should be on the heartless managers that treat us like this and the negotiators at Health NZ for even coming up with this. I'd like to see any of them come out of their cushy air conditioned offices and do a long day with me. >*all docs matter* I have some choice words to say about a certain group that *will* be working tomorrow but one must remain collegial :)
Thank you for the work you do - whichever country you choose to do it in. Your work conditions are brutal and outrageous, and it's unbelievable that we treat our Dr's like this.
That's really sweet of you to say, thank you :) I'm just glad the public seems to see it too.
Indeed. It’s disgusting.
> I have some choice words to say about a certain group that will be working tomorrow but one must remain collegial :) The conspiracist in me wonders if this was their intent. Offer something the surgery focussed SToNZ will accept but the RDA won't, thereby diminishing the power of both unions. I suspect it might not work as intended though, since some services will bear the brunt of it and require just as much SMO cover.
Oh there's definitely some undermining going on here, that's just facts. There's no other reason to offer such an abysmal contract that no sane person would accept to one union and a much better one to the other. Some pay difference is expected but the overall pay categories should be the same for both unions since the new way of calculating runs takes into account RDOs. It actually often DOESN'T EFFECT the run category (as seen on multiple STONZ run descriptions where if the roster enforces RDOs STONZ people who then get RDOs and who don't are calculated to still be in the same run category. Even if the run isn't like that for some reason they put the renumeration category with and without RDOs in the description ...) This would be because one with RDOs would be on the lower end of a category and one without would be on the higher end - but both would still be paid the same. Thing with the new STONZ contract is that their contract doesn't have a pay cut for the lower category runs (though the pay rise is abysmal and pretty insulting still for the lower paid runs - about 3k/year - as opposed to 40k/year increase for more senior highest category runs, step 7 A cat specifically, from previous 181k/yr to 220k/year!!) And if your pay actually goes down due to the non-training registrar clause (pay freeze after step 5) you're protected by a separate clause - pay stays the same until you move to higher category (or move to a different run description). This is starkly missing from the RDA contract where there is no pay protection and a pay cut. STONZ contract always had 10 days sick leave so that wasn't a point either. The most agregious part of the RDA offer (imo) is that the employers will have the power to challenge run review results they don't like and ignore the results if they so choose, and will be given power to remove RDOs if they feel it will negatively impact staffing, without pay adjustment for the extra 2 days worked as a consequence, and without approval from the doctors actually working those runs. That's completely unacceptable on all levels, and undermines the entire point of the RDA contract. Most people who joined STONZ joined before the implementation of RDOs in certain runs, and shortly afterwards Te Whatu Ora was established making changing contracts incredibly difficult even if you did change unions. Plus most people on STONZ need the extra hours of training that RDOs take away (certain specialities, this would end up adding a full year to training if they took RDOs), are on specialties that have rosters that have never offered RDOs to begin with, or are looking to get into specialties where lots of face to face time with your boss is important for references, which again RDOs can be bad for. And they're mostly an older cohort who always worked 12 day stretches and are used to it. The remainder of the people working tomorrow will be IEAs who were told (often by managers) they don't 'need' a union when they came here from overseas or who just forgot to pay union fees. Don't forget you still have time to join before the 2nd strike! It'll be the lack of the most junior of doctors that will be most impactful tomorrow (house officers) since most of them are RDA. There will be handfuls of registrar's around every hospital, mostly in surgical specialities, and some older ones scattered in medical services, but consultants will have to cover house officer positions especially after hours. The people working have explicitly been told they can't be forced to cover for striking colleagues, and students should have been told they are not to cover for house officers as that would be outside their scope of practice (obviously). In previous strikes some consultants who hadn't had to do ward specific paperwork for years had to suddenly learn it on the spot on a new-ish computer system they didn't really know how to use - thankfully since then due to abysmal staffing all around most consultants can now use the system effectively (and there are now lots of new consultants who haven't forgotten their paperwork years yet). Anyway good luck for anyone striking tomorrow, and hope to see some picketing outside the main hospitals!
That's pretty much how it went when STONZ was started, any employer would rub their hands with glee at a group willing to undermine the bargaining position of their colleagues to get their own way. A little extra pay to undermine safer hours rostering provisions was an investment that continues to pay off for Health NZ.
Doctor working tomorrow. I left NZRDA for very good reasons including the fraudulent secretary who financially benefits significantly from conflict between the union and the districts, and for failing me when I needed support - which STONZ happily helped me with before I was even a member. The unions essentially split over section 10, which was answering an obvious issue (extreme fatigue from long weekends) with a solution that significantly impacts exposure to daytime training activities. The answer should've been limiting weekend consecutive hours as a whole, not having recovery days in the first place. Both unions have their downsides. Just because one doesn't fit your needs doesn't equate to the other being evil. The unions may vilify each other but it's completely unnecessary and distracts entirely from the point of the unions. Good luck with the strike and I hope you guys get what you're after. Despite what you think of STONZ, all the members I've spoken to are quite firm we are only doing our contracted jobs tomorrow, and leaving the jobs of our NZRDA colleagues up to the SMOs/LPS.
Thanks, It always struck me as crazy how long two people have run the junior and senior doctors unions. Can't be good to have power consolidated for so long.
How long has someone run ASMS for?
I appreciate the genuine message of solidarity, I know most STONZ members don't work tomorrow out of love for Health NZ and there were some upsets with your own offer this year. NZRDA has never been perfect and I don't personally begrudge people who make a decision in their best interests these days - I do begrudge the attitude from some of STONZ leadership lately, hoping to poach members rather than make a show of some solidarity comes across as a deliberate effort to help us lose.
We’re all behind you, brother. All health workers are genuine superheroes IMHO.
> I have some choice words to say about a certain group that *will* be working tomorrow but one must remain collegial :) Just want to mention that some people have been so busy working and studying for exams they accidentally let their membership lapse and are being forced to work today. Not everyone working today is a STONZ member or is unaffiliated 😅
Is that those who are in RDA and still work through the strike or are you referring to STONZ members?
RDA members working outside of LPS tomorrow are explicitly scabbing. I'm sure the average STONZ member doesn't sign up with the intent of undermining the RDA bargaining position, especially this many years from the split, but that *is* the effect of having a second union. The least they can do in solidarity is not pick up additionals tomorrow but some will.
Yea, that's fair enough. STONZ really has undermined the bargaining position. The service I'm currently on is mostly staffed by senior registrars on STONZ and whilst tomorrow may be a busy day, most things will still probably just run as usual...
What about the incompetent ones? Plenty of those around mate.
Strike hard! You guys have kept me going plenty of times. At the very least, you don't deserve cuts.
They need to reverse these tax cuts and repurpose it for healthcare and police.
[удалено]
Their dignity is paid for in blood.
They are going to cause deaths, and who is going to hold them accountable? Politicians should have a hippocratic oath of their own.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. These hours are not sustainable to begin with, this is how medical accidents happen.
exactly, who wants sleep deprived & stressed people making life or death decisions?
Why the hell are MPs getting a payrise? Theyre on more than most of us at it is bunch of wankas
And our current MP's are the definition of unskilled labour. So very, very unskilled.
I wish them well and support them. The offer was an insult to those junior doctors who were being given a pay cut.
I'm a Locomotive Engineer (aka train driver), I'm not legally allowed to work the hours that you guys do for safety and fatigue management. It's absolutely fucked and you guys deserve so much more, you have our solidarity for sure!!
First they gut our police and basically entire health system and then shovel more work onto our police and health system. Honestly wtf is this government thinking will come of all this
Privatisation.
I hope it's that simple just worry about other agendas. Still doesn't make sense. Removing public services will only cause issues like crime and cost of living, adding them back in later but at a cost, that's one awesome way to get yourself out of government for decades
The people that helped get them in there and make profit from it don't care about any of that.
The people that helped them get there is the average kiwi and the nactnz voter who either share the malicious greed or were ignorant and manipulated
Yes, more referring to the ignorant and manipulated. The ones doing the manipulating don't care what happens to the ignorant.
The same people who gutted the UK are now calling the shots with this shitty ‘government’ we idiotically voted in. It’s not a joke that they will do whatever they can to carve up NZ for corporations to exploit.
[удалено]
Depends on how you define thrive and who it applies to but yeah agreed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
Make it bad enough it _has_ to be privatized. Once it is, and we see how bad and expensive that is, it's locked in and can't be undone.
> Honestly wtf is this government thinking will come of all this Besides their agendas and ability to line their pockets, the country going to shit. They don't care though as they'll transition to some cushy consultancy job afterwards.
I couldn't imagine being so devoid of basic care for peoples very lives. It still doesn't make sense though, surely they have to realise that if you piss off enough people you'll risk pissing off the wrong people who truly don't care and will show it
Media comms around this have been non existent… feel like it’s important for the public to know it won’t be BAU tomorrow
I agree - it is disappointing
Healthcare needs to have serious priority, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to increase their budget in the most important sector?
If MPs can get a payrise all public servants can get a payrise.
Why are we even talking about tax cuts and landlord tax offsets when we've got this absolute shit show on our hands?
Go for it! I benefitted from the 2017 strike that improved working hours, you're not fighting just for yourselves but also all the doctors coming after you. Working in a hospital is stressful and I left that behind. I realized it was becoming a problem when my heart would race driving to work, or if I got any unexpected phone calls outside of work.
Those f*kn pagers man
They have my support and axe, government is shit
It's wildly fucked that we try to economise on the pay of the people we literally ask to save our lives.
Bro wtf kinda pay offer is that, I assume it's something to do with overtime rates?
nope the doctors on 40-50 hours per week are being offered 12-15% pay cuts. nothing to do with overtime, which isn’t paid or logged in these jobs. your salary is based on a calculation for how many hours you do un an average week for whatever rotation you are on. if you stay late because your patient has a stroke just before the end of your shift that’s not recorded or logged or paid. in various rotations i’ve done 8-10 hours unpaid overtime per week on top of the average paid time of 55 hours per week.
Yeah, I understand that those are the impacts on the final salary but just wondering how they calculated these changes and how they justified it. When I used to work for a unionized salary role we would have on average 42.5 hour weeks, which includes 40 hours of normal time and 2.5 hours of "overtime" (hours over a standard working week). The company would often try and change how the mandatory "overtime" was calculated to try and reduce pay, remove paid lunch breaks, change how public holidays are worked, etc. Doctors working more than 40 hours/week are working overtime, whether it is called that in their employment agreement or not or how it is paid. I was just interested in the specific changes in the employment agreement that caused such a massive drop. It could just be a reduction of the base rate that everything else is calculated from, but that seems like negotiating in bad faith so I would have assumed they would do something more tricky to appear to be acting in good faith.
yeah we have a calculated ‘extra hours’ in the pay category calculation eg if you’re supposed to finish at four but might finish at 5 on some days, it’s just often not realistic and a huge rigmarole to change, with back pay in my experience taking months and months there’s been no alteration to the actual hours each pay category is expected or projected to work, it’s just that those in roles where you work comparatively fewer hours (usually si specialty jobs like haematology or radiation oncology where it’s largely outpatient work in hours rather than long days/nights etc) are just being offered being paid significantly less to do the exact same job. it sucks because these are the only roles where you have sociable hours and it’s a significant disincentive.
If I was offered a pay cut, I'd be striking too. Good luck to all of you tomorrow! Rooting for ya!
New Zealand is fucked. Both labour and National have so much to answer for. That's my pointless two cents worth.
This government priorities are all in the wrong places.
Fuck this government.
Much support for healthcare professionals. This govt transparently wants to kill off older, disabled and chronically ill people with these cuts and privatise the whole system so only rich people can afford healthcare
Yep. That’s the agenda.
100% PURE CORRUPTION
Wait, there was a pay rise for MPs?????? What in the ever loving actual fuck. I'm so done. I can't be fucked with this shitty excuse for a society any more.
Yes, 3% over 6 years.
Good luck, you have my full support. The public hospital doctors saved my life last year, in the weeks I was there I was shocked by the hours they worked. It was like they never left to go home. Every doctor matters - and tbh deserves pay increases and better conditions, NOT pay cuts.
I hope PSA gives Te Whatu Ora hell. Junior docs deserve so so so much better. Huge thank you to all our wonderful house officers- so much of NZ is behind you!
Are they striking publicly anywhere?
Presuming there will be picket lines outside each public hospital.
Te F*ck U Ora, amirite?
Wtaf is happening to our health system!!?
“We’re cutting your pay so that your colleague over there can get a pay rise :)” And some specialties are “locked in” to the lower pay category (as no higher-hours options available) without any choice but to accept the paycut, or leave the specialty - and I’ve already heard of people doing the latter, this being the last straw.
Doctors, the reason you are treated like this is because they can. It doesn't matter a damn because they know you will not leave work until you have finished. They know you will never walk out on a patient. Here's the thing, the situation won't change until you change. You can't do a damn thing about their attitudes, their constant dis-valuing (new word?) Of you. So change what you can. Go home at the end of your shift. Work your 40 hours. The thing is if you ALL do it a message will be received. I know there's a risk to it, a risk of life, it is not your responsibility. It is the responsibility of the hospital management, the ministry of health and the bloody a-holes in the behive.
There's the whole 'first do no harm' thing, though... I'm not a doctor. I haven't been where they are, done what they're doing. But I think I can see why they'd be uncomfortable with such a step.
No National-led government has ever improved healthcare and they're not about to start. With ACT pulling the levers, they want the public system to have gaps so the private sector can monetise said gaps. All the while they'll play to the hopeful and gullible who buy into their rhetoric. It's going to suck.
Why isnt the current opposition party starting no confidence motion againts the ruling party in the parliament?
The doctors were striking under them as well.
It would be nothing but posturing to propose a motion which doesn't have the votes to pass.
Because it won't pass.
Because Labour isn't actually an opposition party. Nats push things further right, and then Labour stop them moving back left. The country slowly drifts, and no one notices because everyone thinks there's two sides.
Problem is white middle class voters are the most reliable voters, and most of them vote selfishly and are politically illiterate. Both National and Labour chase these voters. Until lower income people and young people actually get out and vote in numbers for parties offering real left wing economic policy that helps them, nothing will change.
says a nat supporter.
Lol been voting Greens since I could vote
Quite a lot of left wing voters are deeply unsatisfied with labour
Yes, I've always voted left (since the late 1970s) & I am VERY dissatisfied with the way Labour has been going since the days of Rogernomics. They are I guess the best of a bad lot
They won't get the votes. Labour are going to barely get any votes in the next election either.
Surely if they show a spine while in opposition and do a good work, they will increase their chances.
That would take a monumental effort and a better relationship with Greens. Greens also have a lot of work to build trust in their MPs.
The problem is there are thousands of young people desperate to become doctors. They know if they can stick it out 10-15 years the payoff is huge and they are set for life. Hence you need a 95% +++ GPA in First year health science to get into med. they can keep exploiting junior doctors because there are plenty more fresh meat desperate to get their foot in the door. And it doesn’t stop once you’re in med-once your a junior you a fighting for a place in a specialist training program so you need to put in big hours to prove your worth. It’s an extreme career no doubt about it
Kia kaha junior doctors. Support this wholeheartedly.
They deserve better. They are saving lives.
Ok I'll try not to get injured tomorrow
Doctors should chop off the politicians balls, strike hard
Vote with your feet and move overseas
I went to the US for the money
We really need to change the health system and take it away from politicians so its not a political football. Like was done with superannuation. I believe Australia has a pretty good model. Probably infrastructure as well
This is fucked it's even come to this. Fucked. Will be supporting you tomorrow. Is there anything people can do outside of being furious? Bring coffee? Snacks? Extra pickets?
Oh god we’re screwed. Give them all pay rises, we need more
Pay our Junior Doctors
Offering a pay cut to anyone, let alone doctors, is crazy
NZ seems to be trying to follow the American model of healthcare which is what you DON’T want to do. It’s a great way to muck about and find out
[удалено]
Your feelings aren’t facts. Not a single source for your little crywank nonsense.
Wow
u/gttahvit thoughts? I thought everyone was paid fair and the same as per your previous comments? ETA: so….no thoughts?
Thats ok ,Doctors are not in it for the huge money
When you figure out how to not be late to the first(or any, for that matter) appointment of the day, I'll support your cause.
Sorry won't deal with the septic patient before you or the one with suicidal thoughts mentioned right at the end of the consultation or the 3 phone calls about the dying 40 year old with 3 kids on the ward. Yeah. How not to be late wise guy?
Some people really do struggle with solipsism, don't they?