The union is standing up to privatisation, wage theft and underfunding with images of cash-flashing Merc-driving doctors.
The NSW Health Services Union claims it is not taking potshots at doctors, despite funding an ad that literally depicts a doctor stuffing cash into his white coat.
Titled “Fix NSW Health”, the campaign calls for a Royal Commission into the flow of money entering the state’s health system, as rates for locum doctors skyrocket but non-clinical staff wages stagnate.
At a HSU member meeting earlier today, state secretary Gerard Hayes said he wanted to be clear that the campaign was not intended to call out any one profession specifically.
“We are not having a shot at junior medical officers, we are not having a shot at staff specialists, we’re not having a shot at career medical officers or salaried medical offices,” he told members.
“We [just] want to ask a question about the things that we don’t know.”
One of the ads, which will be running across the state on a variety of platforms, laments the current outpatient wait times in regional areas and the ambulance ramping crisis.
A voiceover notes that thousands of overworked and underpaid healthcare staff are quitting.
“But some people,” the voiceover continues, cutting to a shot of a man wearing a stethoscope and slipping a wad of $100 notes into his white coat, “are making a lot of money.”
“It just doesn’t add up.”
The ad then moves to a shot of a shiny Mercedes with “DOCTOR 1” vanity plates.
Mr Hayes said that Labor had endorsed a Royal Commission into health funding already, and that outgoing state Health Minister Brad Hazzard had also committed to the idea.
AMA NSW president Dr Michael Bonning said the ad campaign was misleading, given that the anti-doctor messaging was at odds with the HSU’s actual goal of highlighting government funding failures.
“If [the HSU is] going to make this about service delivery and capacity and reducing privatisation of key ancillary services in hospitals, that’s good,” he told The Medical Republic.
“But if [it] makes the image to the public about the fact that it’s greedy doctors, that then undermines what [both of us] want, which is a team-led approach to going forward with this.”
The way doctors had been presented in the ads, Dr Bonning said, was stark and divisive, and undermined public trust in healthcare.
“It’s not like doctors working in the healthcare system drive those profiteering ideas,” he said.
“Because in a public sector we are generally employed, as either doctors under the staff specialist award, or doctors under the VMO determination.”
It’s true that the HSU’s main gripe doesn’t appear to be with doctors themselves, even if the ads paint that picture.
The union, which has 47,000 members across NSW, the ACT and Queensland, represents people who work in public hospitals – e.g. admin staff, wardies, food services and security – as well as ambulance, aged care, disability care and pathology workers.
In all, these auxiliary health workers make up half the health workforce.
These jobs are increasingly being outsourced to private companies, with predictable results.
One patient transport officer who attended this morning’s meeting said that staff had been threatened with privatisation if they didn’t accept a roster reform which would effectively cut their access to overtime pay and penalty rates.
Another HSU member who worked on hospital cleaning staff described the impact that private cleaning contractors had on her and her colleagues.
“We have to virtually go over what the contractor cleaners are doing,” she said.
She was also concerned that the hospital could afford to pay big to get contractors in but couldn’t fork out the money to ensure they were properly trained.
“Cleaning in the hospital is vital … to make sure that everyone in the hospital is safe and the community is safe,” she said. “But we’re not getting that, and to me that’s a big concern.”
Other HSU members spoke to pressure from Local Health Districts to staff brand new units without hiring any additional people.
Then there is growing frustration around the fact that many HSU members have not received a meaningful pay rise through the pandemic, despite being heralded as healthcare heroes as they kept services running.
NSW Health currently sucks up about a third of the state’s budget; Mr Hayes acknowledged that it was unlikely that the sector would receive more than that share going forward.
“I can guarantee this [too]: if more pressure keeps coming, the government will start looking at us to see if we can maybe privatise [more health services],” he said.
This mindset is potentially where the “greedy doctors” narrative came into being.
“Now in NSW and in other parts of the country, locums are earning $5,000 a day just to turn up,” Mr Hayes said.
“That is an incredible expense … because there’s a supply and demand issue.”
Solve that, Mr Hayes said, and the rest of the money could be used to pay the whole workforce fairly and reasonably with no need for more privatisation.
HSU members voted to demand a Royal Commission into NSW Health, a removal of the state wages cap and a “day of action” on December 14.
