Thousands of doctors to strike

About 3300 resident doctors plan to strike for 48 hours in January.

The New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA), which accounts for up to 90 per cent of the workforce, issued a strike notice on December 31 after nearly a year of negotiations.

Strike action is set to take place from 7am on January 15.

Resident doctors (RMOs, or resident medical officers) are registered medical practitioners, and range in experience from first-year qualified doctors to those with more than 12 years’ experience.

RMOs primarily work in the public sector and are employed by all 20 district health boards.

Resident doctors are also employed in general practice as GP trainees.

The resident doctors national collective agreement – which sets out the terms and conditions of their employment – expired on February 28, 2018.

The RDA had about 3300 members, national secretary Dr Deborah Powell said.

‘‘Despite a year of bargaining, the employers delayed tabling claims until September, nine months after bargaining began,’’ RDA national president Dr Courtney Brown said. After three months of further bargaining, ‘‘significant clawbacks’’ remained on the table.

Brown said that while 2018 saw ‘‘most’’ health workers gain improvements to their terms and conditions of employment, DHBs had taken a ‘‘distinctly different approach’’ to resident doctors.

‘‘It feels like they are punishing us for our successful safer hours campaign [in 2016]’’, she said.

Brown said resident doctors were a ‘‘particularly vulnerable’’ workforce due to the fact they frequently moved between DHBs as part of their training.

‘‘They are literally at the mercy of different terms and conditions being imposed.’’

No mediation was scheduled, but the RDA remained available to negotiate with the DHBs ahead of any strike action occurring, Powell said.

The strike notice comes as a shortage of RMOs is leaving those at the coalface with ‘‘unsafe’’ workloads.

A resident doctor at Auckland City Hospital told Stuff in September that resident doctors were forced to ‘‘cross-cover’’ outside of normal hours to fill gaps, causing fatigue.

RMOs are not allowed to work more than 16 hours a day, 72 hours a week, or 12 days in a row without two days off.

Those treating acutely ill patients – medical, surgical and obstetric, for example – were not supposed to work more than 10 days in a row, Powell said at the time.

[Resident doctors] are literally at the mercy of different terms and conditions being imposed.’’ Courtney Brown, Resident Doctors’ Association president