Katie Ben: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists President on the senior doctors strike

About five-thousand senior doctors are striking until midnight in a bid to get more of them on the roster. 

This comes after eight months of failed negotiations with Health New Zealand. 

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists says it’s not going to fill workforce gaps without major improvements to pay and conditions. 

President Katie Ben told Ryan Bridge salaries aren't competitive enough for doctors to want to stay in the country. 

She says more doctors need to be recruited into New Zealand and ones that train here need to be kept. 

Ben says they often work 10 hour days and then stay on call for 14 hours overnight. 

She says they're working non-stop through the day as there's not enough staff for any breaks. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, five thousand senior doctors striking. They're about five
hours into the striking out ends at midnight tonight. Four
thousand surgeries and procedures that could have happened today won't
happen today. Doctor Katie ben is the President Association of
Salaried Medical Specialists with me this morning, Katie, Good morning,
good morning. Thank you for being with me. Now, can
you run us through? I thought we would start with

(00:22):
just an example. Can you run us through what your average.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Day looks like?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
How long you're weak is, how long you're working, how
bad the problem is?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Average day is eleven hours. You arrive at work, you
see the patient's booked for the morning. You have to
wait for a bit to find out if there's a
bed for them to go into. So you don't know
if you're actually going to start your theater list on time,
because you don't know if the hospital can take the
patients after their operations. The lists usually start close to time.

(00:54):
You're then working non stops through the day. There's not
enough staff to give anyone a lunch break or a
key break, or in fact even a bathroom break. So
often I'm in theater or taking patients recovery or getting
on with the next case NonStop for somewhere about ten
or eleven hours, invariably because you didn't start on time

(01:15):
because you were waiting for the bed situation, you run late,
so I tend to finish work. I should finish work
about six. I tend to finish work more like seven
on most nights, and then I come home. If I
am on call, then I will stay working and be
available on my phone for any emergencies throughout the night

(01:36):
until eight o'clock the following morning. So that's actually a
twelve a ten hour day followed by a fourteen hour
on call overnight shift. Invariably you are in and working
for most of it. How many honors all standard day?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
How many on call are you doing? On call every night,
not every night.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
The frequency of on calls depends on the size of
the department you're in. So I will be on call
at least every four weekends.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And how many days per week are you working these
tenelm in nowadays.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
If I'm working a weekend, I'm working twelve days on
the drot.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And then how many do get off after that?

Speaker 3 (02:16):
It depends if you work the weekend in the middle
of the week's all day Monday to Friday. Then I'll
work the weekend. Then I'll do Monday to Friday, and
then I'll get the weekend off, and then I'll be
back at work on Monday.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
And there's no toilet breaks, and there's no lunch breaks
or toilet breaks. If you're lucky, I mean, obviously you have.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
To do it.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
What is you tend to be honest, you tend not
to drink that much because you know you're not going
to get to the baths room anyway.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
What do you get paid? Can I ask you?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I you are welcome to ask me. I am on
the Asms Mecca, which is a freely available document for
anyone to read. I've been a doctor for sixteen years
in this country, senior medical officer, and I'm not yet
on the top step. So we have fifteen steps. I

(03:06):
am currently on step thirteen. So it's I'm trying to
work out if you after anything like that.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
A rough, A very rough.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I it's approximately two hundred and thirty thousand. Do you
do you know? I'm checking my salary scale. Here we go,
step thirteen. I'm lying it's two hundred and fifty thousand.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Okay, you've just outlined your what your workday looks like,
and what you will pay is is this payoffer? The
clincher here is the fact that you're not getting a
higher increase. What's making you strike.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
What's making us strike is that we don't have enough
doctors on the roster. And in order to get more
doctors on the roster, we need to recruit more doctors
into New Zealand and to keep the ones that we
train here staying here. To do that, we need to
be competitive with salary in terms and conditions. Because our
closest neighbor is Australia. They're starting senior specialist doctors will

(04:15):
start on a higher salary than our finishing senior specialist doctors.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
What would you get over there? Head? Do you know
how much or how much more might you get?

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (04:25):
I looked into it. I would get one hundred thousand
more Australian dollars after tax per year for working approximately
sixty percent of the hours I work now I support
from junior doctors.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Can I just be honest with you? Why don't you
do it?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
I've settled in Nelson, I have family in Nelson who
are in school. I have friends networks, communities. I have
a life here and also I feel I'm not key
we by birth, I'm keep we buy adoption and citizenship.

(05:04):
After being here some years, I feel a sensor's loyalty
to the country that's.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Housed me, Katie.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
That loyalty being tested at the moment. The doctor strike
will last. That was a fascinating insight, wasn't it. The
day in the life of our senior doctor will last
until midnight tonight. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
listen live to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.