Doctors in Victoria’s public hospitals were meant to strike today but the union says that planned industrial action has been postponed after an 11th hour legal threat from the Carroll Labor Government.
Greens MP and former GP Dr Sarah Mansfield says that instead of silencing doctors, Labor should listen to them, saying that doctors are exhausted and struggling to find time to eat or go to the bathroom.
Dr Mansfield walked off the job as a junior doctor 17 years ago over similar conditions. Labor’s been in power for the best part of 20 years and doctors are still enduring the same conditions with unsafe workloads, exhaustion and unpaid overtime.
The Australian Medical Association Victoria says doctors are reporting extreme fatigue and stress, routinely working unpaid overtime and struggling to get adequate breaks.
At the time, Dr Mansfield warned that junior doctors were working entire shifts without time to eat, drink or go to the bathroom, while hospitals refused to pay overtime that was necessary to keep patients safe. Seventeen years later, doctors say those problems remain.
As stated by Victorian Greens health spokesperson Dr Sarah Mansfield:
“Doctors have spent more than a year asking Labor to fix unsafe workloads, unpaid overtime and exhausting hours. Labor’s response at the eleventh hour is to send in the lawyers.
“It is extraordinary that the government appears more willing to spend taxpayer money finding a legal technicality to stop doctors speaking out than it is to make them a serious offer.
“Teachers, healthcare workers, doctors – Labor says they’re the party of working people, of health and education, but if that were true frontline workers wouldn’t have to be walking off the job just for fair pay and safe conditions.
“Seventeen years ago, as a junior doctor, I was protesting because doctors were exhausted, working unpaid overtime and struggling to even find time to eat or go to the bathroom during a shift.
“Labor’s been in power most of the past two decades and it’s extraordinary to me that doctors are being forced to take industrial action over the same problems.
“This isn’t just about doctors’ working conditions. Exhausted doctors working excessive hours without proper breaks is a patient safety issue. Labor must stop taking our health workforce for granted and negotiate seriously on safe hours, proper breaks and fair pay.”
