Unrest Amongst Dentists - It's International
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- Published: Wednesday, 30 August 2023 09:44
- Written by Peter Ingle
- Hits: 1381
With our unique NHS system and accident prone government, it is often assumed that health related matters are worse in the UK than elsewhere, and that we will languish at the bottom of league tables, complete with a particularly unhappy workforce.
So it may come as a surprise that Doctors and Dentists in New Zealand are about to strike. Though often portrayed as how a nicer version of the UK might look, if it was drastically depopulated and dropped in the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand’s senior doctors and dentists have had enough.
Te Whatu Ora, Health New Zealand, was established by the government to replace the country’s 20 district health boards in 2022. The Otago Times reports that about 5000 senior doctors and dentists will go on strike, as union members vote to send a strong message to Te Whatu Ora, that it needs to improve its current “substandard offer."
The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists’ (ASMS) chief executive Sarah Dalton said that it was a historic moment as it represented the first time the union had gone on a national strike.
She said members wanted pay rates to increase with the Consumer Price Index, and she was hopeful that the strike action would encourage Te Whatu Ora to "think again".
The vote was, “a significant endorsement of collective action and reflects the extreme frustration of members over Te Whatu Ora and the Government’s refusal to value our workforce, address staff shortages, and ensure that salaries maintain their real value against inflation," Dalton said. 82% of members had voted in favour of the strike.
ASMS will issue strike notices to the employer, with the first strike happening on September 5th, followed by two more. "The three endorsed strike dates send a strong message to the employer that it needs to improve its current substandard offer," said Dalton. "While we’re losing people to Australia and to the private health system, they’re unable to even maintain current pay and conditions for our members. Cementing in a third or fourth year of real pay cuts is not the way to go about retaining and recruiting sorely needed specialist doctors and dentists."
In common with her colleagues in the UK she pointed out that union members’ decision to strike represented a wider frustration from workers about how hard it was to adequately care for patients.
In a similar vein, she went on to say that, "we’ve had a lot of correspondence from members saying they’re really disheartened,” and that, “our system is not resourced to cope."
Te Whatu Ora is New Zealand’s largest employer, consolidating a combined work force of 80,000, with an estimated annual operating budget of NZ$20 billion and an asset base of about NZ$24 billion. It was reputedly modelled after the UK NHS.
From New Zealand to Nigeria, where The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has now given a 21-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to meet its demands or face industrial action.
The announcement came at the end of an extraordinary National Executive Council meeting of MDCAN. Issues include non implementation of a review of retirement ages, and reduction of a recruitment allowance. The date of other agreed changes had also been postponed from January to June. Reference was made to the removal of a fuel subsidy and recent high inflation. This followed negotiations that had been going on for over two years. While inflation and retirement ages are issues in common with UK health care workers, they can be relieved that they do not share one of the key concerns of their Nigerian colleagues, kidnappings.
Back in familiar territory, MDCAN drew the attention of the government to the impact of the brain drain in the health sector, which according to them is, “contributing to burnout among our members and inadequate healthcare workforce to cater to the health of Nigerians.”
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