Sarah Dalton: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director on senior doctors planning to strike in May

Senior doctors will be walking off the job in May, looking for a 12 percent pay rise. 

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists announced a 24-hour strike would take place starting on May 1.

It could affect 4300 planned procedures or first specialist appointments - and up to 4300 radiology appointments. 

Association executive director Sarah Dalton says claims specialists make more than $300,000 dollars a year are wrong. 

"It's probably closer to $240,000 - which still sounds like a lot, right? But we have to think about what senior doctors actually do."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seeingior doctors have an hours that they're going to go
on strike on the first of May for a full day,
twenty four hours. It means around four three hundred planned
procedures and first specialist assessments and up to four thousand,
three hundred radiology procedures will have to be canceled now.
Sarah Dalton is the executive director of the Association of
Salaried Medical Specialists. Say Sarah Kelder, Heather, how are you

(00:20):
doing very well? Thank you? What is it that you
guys are after?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, we've put an a claim for twelve percent. One
of the reasons for that is that the RMOS some
people call them junior doctors, received quite good pay settlements
last year. That has means that some of those junior
doctors when they become a specialist, take a pay cut.
So it's really about trying to maintain relativities between SMOs
and RMOS.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Is that twelve percent on top of the average salary,
which is what three hundred and forty three thousand dollars?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh my god. If our members were earning on average
three hundred and forty thousand dollars, there would be no strike.
And if that is an offer from the minister. We
would love to accept it. That is a made up number, unfortunately, Is.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
It made up?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Because because a twelve percent pay increase on top of
that is forty thousand dollars. It's quite a lot y.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, but our members aren't earning on average three hundred
and forty thousand dollars. Now, we wouldn't need a twelve
percent pay increase. Is that that that was actual average
way incomes?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Its realistic.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I'll probably closer to.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Two hundred and forty thousand, which still sounds like a lot, right, Yeah,
but we have to think about what senior doctors actually
do because it's still a pay increase of what it
would be around about thirty thousand bucks, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a serious increase that our members are
looking for a serious work that we do and we
don't have enough doctors here.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah. Samon Brown has gone public with not only the
average salary, but also six weeks of annual leaf fully paid,
three months of baticals every six years, reimbursement for medical licenses,
college memberships and insurance and so on. I guess kind
of trying to win win the public relations battle there.
Do you think you're up against it. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
He's also put in his document about the Direction for
the Health System put out at the beginning of March,
that New Zealand nurses earn almost the same amount as
our newss in New South Wales. If there was the
case for doctors again, we wouldn't have this problem. There
was a massive pay gap between New Zealand and Australia
and we are losing doctors to that country.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Sarah, thanks very much for talking to us at Sarah Dalton,
the executive director of the Association of Salary Medical Specialists.
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