With six days until 203 of NSW’s psychiatrists quit, the union representing them says the government has allowed a bad situation to become a disaster.
The union representing some 200 psychiatrists who plan to resign from the NSW public health system in less than a week over what it says is a system in crisis has come out swinging saying the state government has known about the problems for years.
Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation NSW acting executive director Ian Lisser said the government’s move to paint this as purely a money-grabbing exercise was “appalling”.
He was particularly referring to a press conference held by health minister Ryan Park on Saturday in which he begged psychiatrists not to resign, as reported earlier this week in TMR’s sister publication Health Services Daily.
“I thought it was a magnificent piece of theatre, his press conference,” Mr Lisser told TMR today.
“But behind that theatre there is no sense. It is just a facade, and it was appalling messaging. Basically, he was gaslighting the psychiatrists and saying they were the ones that were putting patients at risk when it’s the government.”
Mr Lisser also disputed claims by Mr Park that the pay increase sought by the psychiatrists amounted to about $90,000 per full-time role, a rise the government could not afford.
In response to a question from the media at a press conference on Saturday, Mr Park said the “average psychiatrist” in the public system was currently earning more than $400,000 annually, in terms of their package that included leave, superannuation and any allowances they received.
Mr Lisser told TMR a first-year psychiatrist working full-time (in a 1FTE role) was on $262,000 per year. He said the maximum for more experienced specialists would be $354,000 per year (1FTE).
“My estimate is around about 70% of the mental health workforce is less than 1FTE. I think what [Mr Park has done] is they’ve gone straight to the year five salary level,” he said.
“It is a false narrative. It’s misleading and I would say to Ryan Park is, okay, open the books. Let’s see the figures. Let’s least see your staffing numbers.”
Mr Lisser said ASMOF’s hearing with the NSW Ministry of Health at the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW yesterday had not resulted in a resolution, and the status quo remained.
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He told HSD he was disappointed and surprised the NSW government was not doing more to avert the crisis, and was rapidly losing hope the impasse would be resolved.
“I honestly thought that the government would come to the table and there would be a resolution, and I thought that would happen last year,” he said.
“I’m deeply disappointed that this is occurring. It shouldn’t be necessary.”
Mr Lisser said ASMOF had stood by the IRC NSW orders made in December last year “not to organise, incite or encourage the psychiatrists to resign” and that the mass resignation was not industrial action.
“That’s never been our intention,” he said.
“ASMOF wants the hospitals and the mental health departments to be properly staffed. We don’t want to lose these staff for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, because of public health interest.
“Secondly, because, if we lose these psychiatrists, these are the psychiatrists who oversee the training of the doctors in training.
“If they leave the system that puts the training of the doctors in training in a perilous state, and those doctors in training will be thinking, well, hold on, why should I stay in NSW when I’m going to have problems getting accredited and my training approved and progress, and they’re also getting paid less than their counterparts interstate.”
He was adamant that it was the psychiatrists themselves who were organising the mass resignation.
“The psychiatrists are the ones who are resigning. This is not industrial action. This is staff saying, that’s it, we’ve had it.
“One hundred and forty staff have already left. They’ve already voted with their feet, and they’ve left the public health system. The workload that 140 did then fell onto the backs of the remaining staff.
“So not only did the remaining staff have to work in underfunded, under-resourced mental health departments, they had to do so with even greater workloads, knowing full well that their colleagues interstate, on average, get 30% more than they do, and knowing that the government was basically asleep at the wheel and were not going to do anything to address the workload crisis within the mental health system.
“These 200 have said, we’re going to give the government until 21 January to do something meaningful about it. And if they don’t do anything meaningful, they intend to resign.”
Mr Lisser said the state government had known about the “massive, massive problem” for years and yet had done nothing to address it.
“The government was told about this prior to coming into office, and they were told about it when they were elected in 2023. The College of Psychiatry has been ringing the alarm, ASMOF has been ringing the alarm.
“We know internally senior staff within the ministry and within the local health districts have been telling the government the same thing – you need to do something to address this, because otherwise it’s going to fall apart, and it’s gone from bad to worse, from worse to a crisis, and now it’s from crisis to a disaster.”
