The Rockliff government's offer of a $2,000 bonus payment to health workers is nowhere near enough to ease the load on exhausted health workers and stop them from leaving the profession.
While the bonus payment appears on the face of it to be a good first step, significant concerns remain about the conditions the Liberal government has tied to it, after they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to provide anything at all, then offering $1,000 less than the bonus provided to health workers in Victoria and NSW.
Unions are concerned that part-time health workers will miss out on the bonus payment, and that the $2,000 is contingent on the government doing away with escalation bonus payments and health care workers ceasing strike action.
Not only that, but this government's stubborn refusal to budge on its 2.5 per cent wages policy will do nothing to address chronic staff shortages or convince health workers on the brink to stay in the profession.
Industrial action continues across the state nurses at the North West Regional Hospital are walking off the job today and other public sector workers including paramedics are also planning industrial action.
While the Premier and part-time Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff struggles to get the basics right across virtually the entire public service, Tasmania's health system remains in crisis, with huge numbers of vacant nursing positions, and massive waiting lists for elective surgery and specialist appointments.
As an ED nurse at the Royal Hobart Hospital who wrote to Mr Rockliff said, "our department is stretched so beyond our limitations that it is quite frankly a dangerous and terrifying place to work".
Mr Rockliff needs to do much more to recruit and retain staff - and our stressed and overworked health workers deserve real recognition and tangible action so they can stay in Tasmania rather than moving interstate to seek better pay and conditions.
Anita Dow MP
Shadow Health Minister
