Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Katie Ben: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists President on the senior doctors strike

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Katie Ben: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists President on the senior doctors strike · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right now, five thousand senior doctors striking. They're about five
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: hours into the striking out ends at midnight tonight. Four
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: thousand surgeries and procedures that could have happened today won't
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  Speaker 1: happen today. Doctor Katie ben is the President Association of
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  Speaker 1: Salaried Medical Specialists with me this morning, Katie, Good morning,
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  Speaker 1: good morning. Thank you for being with me. Now, can
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  Speaker 1: you run us through? I thought we would start with
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  Speaker 1: just an example. Can you run us through what your average.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Day looks like?
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  Speaker 1: How long you're weak is, how long you're working, how
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  Speaker 1: bad the problem is?
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  Speaker 3: Average day is eleven hours. You arrive at work, you
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  Speaker 3: see the patient's booked for the morning. You have to
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  Speaker 3: wait for a bit to find out if there's a
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  Speaker 3: bed for them to go into. So you don't know
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  Speaker 3: if you're actually going to start your theater list on time,
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  Speaker 3: because you don't know if the hospital can take the
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  Speaker 3: patients after their operations. The lists usually start close to time.
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  Speaker 3: You're then working non stops through the day. There's not
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  Speaker 3: enough staff to give anyone a lunch break or a
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  Speaker 3: key break, or in fact even a bathroom break. So
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  Speaker 3: often I'm in theater or taking patients recovery or getting
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  Speaker 3: on with the next case NonStop for somewhere about ten
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  Speaker 3: or eleven hours, invariably because you didn't start on time
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  Speaker 3: because you were waiting for the bed situation, you run late,
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  Speaker 3: so I tend to finish work. I should finish work
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  Speaker 3: about six. I tend to finish work more like seven
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  Speaker 3: on most nights, and then I come home. If I
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  Speaker 3: am on call, then I will stay working and be
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  Speaker 3: available on my phone for any emergencies throughout the night
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  Speaker 3: until eight o'clock the following morning. So that's actually a
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  Speaker 3: twelve a ten hour day followed by a fourteen hour
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  Speaker 3: on call overnight shift. Invariably you are in and working
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  Speaker 3: for most of it. How many honors all standard day?
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  Speaker 2: How many on call are you doing? On call every night,
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  Speaker 2: not every night.
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  Speaker 3: The frequency of on calls depends on the size of
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  Speaker 3: the department you're in. So I will be on call
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  Speaker 3: at least every four weekends.
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  Speaker 1: And how many days per week are you working these
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  Speaker 1: tenelm in nowadays.
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  Speaker 3: If I'm working a weekend, I'm working twelve days on
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  Speaker 3: the drot.
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  Speaker 2: And then how many do get off after that?
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  Speaker 3: It depends if you work the weekend in the middle
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  Speaker 3: of the week's all day Monday to Friday. Then I'll
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  Speaker 3: work the weekend. Then I'll do Monday to Friday, and
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  Speaker 3: then I'll get the weekend off, and then I'll be
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  Speaker 3: back at work on Monday.
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  Speaker 1: And there's no toilet breaks, and there's no lunch breaks
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  Speaker 1: or toilet breaks. If you're lucky, I mean, obviously you have.
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  Speaker 2: To do it.
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  Speaker 3: What is you tend to be honest, you tend not
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  Speaker 3: to drink that much because you know you're not going
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  Speaker 3: to get to the baths room anyway.
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  Speaker 2: What do you get paid? Can I ask you?
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  Speaker 3: I you are welcome to ask me. I am on
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  Speaker 3: the Asms Mecca, which is a freely available document for
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  Speaker 3: anyone to read. I've been a doctor for sixteen years
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  Speaker 3: in this country, senior medical officer, and I'm not yet
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  Speaker 3: on the top step. So we have fifteen steps. I
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  Speaker 3: am currently on step thirteen. So it's I'm trying to
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  Speaker 3: work out if you after anything like that.
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  Speaker 1: A rough, A very rough.
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  Speaker 3: I it's approximately two hundred and thirty thousand. Do you
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  Speaker 3: do you know? I'm checking my salary scale. Here we go,
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  Speaker 3: step thirteen. I'm lying it's two hundred and fifty thousand.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, you've just outlined your what your workday looks like,
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  Speaker 1: and what you will pay is is this payoffer? The
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  Speaker 1: clincher here is the fact that you're not getting a
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  Speaker 1: higher increase. What's making you strike.
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  Speaker 3: What's making us strike is that we don't have enough
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  Speaker 3: doctors on the roster. And in order to get more
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  Speaker 3: doctors on the roster, we need to recruit more doctors
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  Speaker 3: into New Zealand and to keep the ones that we
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  Speaker 3: train here staying here. To do that, we need to
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  Speaker 3: be competitive with salary in terms and conditions. Because our
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  Speaker 3: closest neighbor is Australia. They're starting senior specialist doctors will
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  Speaker 3: start on a higher salary than our finishing senior specialist doctors.
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  Speaker 2: What would you get over there? Head? Do you know
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  Speaker 2: how much or how much more might you get?
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  Speaker 1: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: I looked into it. I would get one hundred thousand
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  Speaker 3: more Australian dollars after tax per year for working approximately
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  Speaker 3: sixty percent of the hours I work now I support
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  Speaker 3: from junior doctors.
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  Speaker 2: Can I just be honest with you? Why don't you
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  Speaker 2: do it?
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  Speaker 3: I've settled in Nelson, I have family in Nelson who
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  Speaker 3: are in school. I have friends networks, communities. I have
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  Speaker 3: a life here and also I feel I'm not key
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  Speaker 3: we by birth, I'm keep we buy adoption and citizenship.
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  Speaker 3: After being here some years, I feel a sensor's loyalty
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  Speaker 3: to the country that's.
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  Speaker 2: Housed me, Katie.
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  Speaker 1: That loyalty being tested at the moment. The doctor strike
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  Speaker 1: will last. That was a fascinating insight, wasn't it. The
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  Speaker 1: day in the life of our senior doctor will last
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  Speaker 1: until midnight tonight. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
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  Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
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  Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.