6 hours Ago By The Guardian
Queensland officials have defended a provocative job-ad blitz to lure New South Wales public-sector psychiatrists across the border as mass resignations trigger a crisis in the nation’s largest health system. Half-page advertisements published in major Sydney newspapers on Friday targeted psychiatrists, saying that “Queensland is calling” and that the state “already pays more” than NSW. The ads appeared as a pay stoush drove around two-thirds of NSW’s public hospital psychiatrists towards resignation, also prompted by what they said were widespread issues in the state’s mental health system.
Tim Nicholls, Queensland’s health minister, said the ads were run to attract the key workers to his state where they could earn around $30,000 more per year than in Labor-led NSW. “Queensland is a top choice for healthcare professionals and we’ve obviously noticed what’s been happening down in NSW,” the LNP minister told AAP. “We thought it was an opportune moment to let people know that pay and conditions here in Queensland are better than you’ll see in NSW.
” The ads were expected to generate a high level of interest and get people thinking about the opportunities available if they relocated, Nicholls added. Queensland could bolster its mental health workforce with NSW staff in locations including Cairns, Sunshine Coast, Whitsundays and Gold Coast, he said. Psychiatrists in NSW had asked for a 25% pay rise and highlighted what they said were poor work conditions due to understaffing, but the Minns government said the demanded rise was not affordable.
The NSW mental health minister, Rose Jackson, said “psychiatry workforce shortages are a nationwide issue” when asked about the Queensland ads. “The NSW government’s position is clear, we are asking psychiatrists to stay with us as we work towards a reasonable and fair solution,” she said. She said on Thursday that 43 of the 200 psychiatrists who had flagged their intention to quit had already left the system and more were expected to leave in the coming days.
Locums were being recruited on higher pay rates to fill the shortages, but dozens of mental health beds across multiple hospitals were closed due to the staffing emergency. NSW officials also unveiled a plan to rely on other health staff – including GPs, nurses and psychologists – in an attempt to plug the gaps. But the peak body for doctors raised serious concerns about the proposed “radical reform”, which it said would replace highly skilled specialists with less-trained workers.
“Psychiatrists spend 12 years in medical training to become specialists and are uniquely skilled at treating complex and debilitating acute and chronic mental health disorders,” the Australian Medical Association acting NSW president, Fred Betros, said. “Healthcare is a collaborative space where doctors work closely with nurses, allied health staff and social workers ..
. [but] any suggestion psychiatrists are superfluous to a patient’s needs is derogatory and dangerous.” The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association said the proposed stopgap measures were “completely unacceptable”, and that nurses were being expected to take on even larger workloads when their workforce was also “on its knees.
” The association’s general secretary, Shaye Candish, said: “We’re seeing beds and wards close across numerous Local Health Districts without adequate consultation. This whole situation is being managed appallingly.” “While we support expanded roles for nurses, the government can’t just throw them in as a stopgap measure, with no planning, discussion, or additional remuneration,” Cavendish said.
The NSW opposition leader, Mark Speakman, on Friday blamed Queensland’s move to nab the public-sector talent on the stalemate in pay talks. “It’s humiliating for Chris Minns and his mental health minister that things have become so bad on their watch that Queensland is now doing a better job talking to NSW psychiatrists than their own government,” he said. “This is their failure, plain and simple.
” The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists said Australia needed a nationally co-ordinated workforce plan to attract, train and retain a workforce of local and overseas-trained psychiatrists..
