News
President’s Blog: Ballot result clear but work continues for all
Friday September 6, 2024
The membership has voted clearly in favour of the State Government’s second Enterprise Bargaining Agreement offer to publicly employed medical practitioners.
The Agreement delivers substantial pay increases following a period of government wages policy-induced stagnation. It also delivers some excellent improvements to other employment entitlements and conditions, such as professional development leave, shift lengths, payment of overtime and financial support for rising training costs for doctors in training. We have also secured a commitment to resolving issues relating to the payment of on-call and recall for DITs and consultants.
Whilst the percentage of members voting in favour of the offer was resounding, it is important to now focus on the significant number of members who voted against it. The clear-cut result is cold comfort for any individual member who perceives that they have been disadvantaged by this Agreement. The phasing out of the Private Practice Cost Allowance was unfortunately inevitable and whilst the pay increases associated with this agreement offset its loss in absolute dollar terms, this is not the case against expected inflation.
We continue to advocate for these, and other, members on a number of fronts. Firstly, whilst it won’t happen immediately, we are optimistic that we can achieve a resolution on on-call and recall payments for public consultants which will deliver a significant and long-deserved benefit to those affected.
Secondly, we are deeply concerned about the future viability of private healthcare. The private hospital sector is so important to the delivery of patient care in WA, providing the majority of elective surgery in addition to medical, psychiatric and other care. We strongly support patient choice, and wish to see adequate support being provided to patients, clinicians and private hospitals to continue their crucial role in our health system. To this end, we have convened a summit of private healthcare, insurance, government sector and clinical leaders, to be held next week. We will report back to you on this soon.
