A Rotorua Hospital anaesthetist who suffered burnout at work says the health system is “perennially stretched” and “getting quietly worse”.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) executive member Andrew Robinson is one of 100 senior doctors at Rotorua Hospital striking on Thursday.

Nationally, more than 5000 senior doctors will go on strike, including 206 staff at Tauranga Hospital.

Thousands of procedures will be postponed, but the union says life-saving services will be maintained.

Last-ditch mediation between Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora and the union failed to avert the strike.

Health NZ is “disappointed” the union did not take its latest offer to members, saying the offer was “fair and realistic” given “tight financial constraints”.

The union says the offer failed to take staffing shortages “seriously” and would “drive existing doctors away”.

Anaesthetist working ‘well in excess’ of contract

Robinson told the Rotorua Daily Post he was working “well in excess” of his contract.

“I went part-time during the week because I was just so burned out, and I don’t think that any job should be such that you have to reduce your hours from one FTE [fulltime equivalent] to be able to do it.”

Robinson said his contract included one in six weekends on call, but staff shortages meant he worked one in four – bringing him up to “the equivalent number of hours to one FTE anyway”.

Robinson said Rotorua Hospital employed about 17 or 18 anaesthetists, not all fulltime.

“We would need about 24, 25 people to work our one in six, maybe one in five.”

He understood most Rotorua Hospital departments were short-staffed.

In his view, Health NZ’s offer was “not really adequate” to recruit doctors, improve on-call rosters and “get rid of the gaps”.

Robinson said he would “far rather be doing the orthopaedic list” instead of striking.

“We’re just working in a system that is just perennially stretched and it’s getting quietly worse.”

‘We value our doctors’

In a Monday press release, Health NZ Te Whatu Ora Te Manawa Taki deputy chief executive Cath Cronin said it was “deeply disappointed” the union did not take its latest offer to members.

It was applying for facilitation, giving an independent party “the opportunity to hear from both sides and make a recommendation”.

“We value our doctors and want to do the best we can for them, but the reality is that Health NZ has limited budget available for salary settlements within its tight financial constraints.

“We believe we have been fair and realistic, including offering to remove the lowest pay steps for senior doctors.”

Cronin said an estimated 4300 planned procedures would be postponed due to strike action.

More than 5000 senior doctors nationally are striking on Thursday for 24 hours, including 100 at Rotorua Hospital. Photo / Andrew Warner

In its latest offer, Cronin said a first-year specialist would receive a $17,700 (9.5%) increase on base salary and the same percentage on other remuneration, such as KiwiSaver. They would receive a $12,211 (6%) salary bump the following year.

A second-year specialist would receive a 6.2% increase on base salary ($11,800) and other remuneration, then a 6% ($12,211) salary rise the following year.

“We have heard ASMS and have focused on their concern regarding growing and retaining our senior doctor workforce.”

Cronin said it offered newly qualified senior medical officers “a very substantial salary increase”.

This included a 3% rise over two years for all other salaries and a lump-sum payment of $8000 to doctors with three or more years’ experience.

It offered an incentive for “hard-to-recruit districts” to help attract and retain senior doctors.

Health NZ referred to its press release when approached to respond to Robinson’s comments.

Latest offer fails to take staff shortages ‘seriously’ – union

ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton told RNZ there was no point taking the offer to its members as for most of them it was “worse than what was originally on the table”.

Most specialists were already near or at the top of the specialist scale, and for them, the offer worked out at “less than 0.77% on average”, she said.

More than 5000 senior doctors nationally are striking on Thursday for 24 hours, including 206 at Tauranga Hospital. Photo / Mead Norton

An ASMS press release said Health NZ’s offer failed to take staffing shortages or achieving health targets “seriously”.

“This will drive existing doctors away rather than help retain them, let alone attract any new senior doctors we need to fix the gaps.”

The impact of doctor shortages was already being seen with longer wait times in emergency departments and for first specialists’ appointments, she said.

Health NZ addressed some issues in mediation, which was “a good start”.

This included removing the bottom three steps of the pay scale to “restore relativities with junior doctors”, benefiting about 500 members.

Dalton said the recruitment and retention allowance was for four districts only, and it needed to be “rolled out across the country wherever there are shortages with clear criteria”.

Vacancies for senior medical officers across the country averaged at 12%, the ASMS said.

The strike would result in planned procedures being postponed, “but the same number of procedures are lost every week due to ongoing staff shortages”, Dalton said.

ASMS members were working to maintain all life-preserving services during the strike.

Hospitals and emergency departments will remain open.