QUEENSLAND’S government is looking to employ doctors from other states or foreign countries to replace doctors who resign over new contracts.
Doctors in southern states of Australia are being offered daily pay of $1800 to $2600 for temporary roles and annual salaries of up to $450,000 for full-time roles to break a strike nn Queensland where doctors have been threatening to resign en masse if the state government tries to force them to sign new individual contracts.
The government says it will hire foreign doctors to fill positions, but an email from First Medical director Ciaran Connolly shows it’s also looking within Australia. “We have been advised to plan for the worst and start to look at permanent solutions and temporary (locum) solutions,” the Courier-Mail reported the email as saying. We are hoping for expressions of interest to either locum or any doctors considering a more permanent move.”
Keep Our Doctors spokesman Dr Nick Buckmaster said “Doctors don’t want to have to leave. We’re hopeful the government will agree to come back to the table and reach a fair agreement,” “The state government’s contracts are so bad that employment warnings have been issued interstate and overseas warning doctors to avoid working to Queensland. “There are going to be very few, if any, top doctors willing to come and work under these conditions.”