NSW public psychiatrists share why they are leaving the jobs they ‘love’ while GPs are looking on with trepidation about what it means for them.
A growing number of resigning psychiatrists are taking to social media platforms to share their grief about leaving the NSW public health system.
Other medicos, including GPs, are also expressing their own fears for the snowball effect that the resignation of more than half the public psychiatry workforce brings.
NSW public psychiatrists and the Ministry of Health have been ordered to arbitration before the full bench of the state’s Industrial Relations Commission in March over a pay and workforce dispute.
At a hearing yesterday the IRC ordered the warring parties to keep talking in a bid to resolve the dispute.
The psychiatrists are seeking a pay rise of 25% — the government has offered 10.5% over the next three years and an additional 10% “onerous duties allowance”, that would be immediately accessible to psychiatrists.
Sydney GP Dr Karen Spielman said she was “feeling very nervous” about the impending resignation of many NSW public psychiatrists.
“I have at least two of my patients admitted in the public system at the moment – will they be discharged precipitously ‘GP to follow up’?,” she wrote on LinkedIn.
“GPs have been doing more and more with less and less for many years especially in the area of mental health where our patients struggle to find the support they need in the wider system. GPs are the glue in the system and we are seeing more patients falling through more gaps.
“The ongoing underfunding of the whole mental health sector is a disgrace that needs to be remedied urgently. We implore the government to significantly increase overall funding and address the workforce shortages which impact all of us in the already-stressed community.
“Surely, it’s a no-brainer to retain skilled passionate clinicians committed to the NSW Public sector rather than pay temporary and expensive locums? Then let’s work together across both tiers of government to find cost effective solutions to this mess.
“And better fund longer consultations for us GPs too so patients can afford to address issues earlier and more comprehensively and therefore avoid crisis driven care.”
Dr Joey Le, a consultant child, adolescent and family, forensic, and general psychiatrist was among the many public psychiatrists who left their jobs this week.
In a moving LinkedIn post late on Tuesday he explained his decision.
“Yesterday, I said farewell to a job that I love, and farewelled a statewide team whose dedication to looking after some of the neediest young people in NSW is second to none,” he wrote.
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“The creativity that the Community Integration Team has shown in working out how to deliver care and support for the most disadvantaged, traumatised and mentally distressed young people who are exiting youth justice centres has been nothing short of miraculous.
“CIT do this with forever dwindling resources available to them with threadbare NSW funded CAMHS services and scattergun federally funded GPs, psychologists, NGOs, paediatricians, and the occasional unicorn child psychiatrist.
“Yet even when CIT are being asked to squeeze blood from a stone, they keep turning up. Again, and again, and again.”
Dr Le went on to explain how his role touched almost every corner of NSW, from Wagga, to Dubbo, to Penrith, to Blacktown, to Parramatta, to Campbelltown, to Burwood, to Kiama, to Gosford, to Maitland, to Kempsey, to Tamworth and to Grafton.
“The creative genius and determination of CIT clinicians has only served as a band aid over the chasms in care for these children and young people over the last 20 years, and it is for this reason that I decided to make a stand by leaving a job that I loved,” he wrote.
“Chris Minns, Daniel Mookjhey, Ryan Park and Rose Jackson are accelerating the progressive rot and decay of public child mental health services that has been in progress for decades. We can’t squeeze blood from bone-dry stones forever.
“Recruitment and retention are problems that are endemic at all levels and within all disciplines of mental health in NSW. I saw the effects of this in every single LHD in NSW. Every. Single. One.
“We’re told that we can’t afford to keep our staff. Can NSW afford to lose them amidst the #NSWPsychiatryCrisis?”
Two weeks ago, NSW psychiatrist Dr Sarah Michael shared her thoughts on why she was leaving her job this week.
“I studied 12 years to be a psychiatrist, working up to 100hrs/week and sitting multiple exams. Most days at work I am yelled at or threatened. Every day I work with risk and suicidality. When things go wrong in my job, people die,” she wrote on LinkedIn.
“Despite this I love the work I do. I feel privileged to work in a team helping people recover from serious mental illness. But sometimes enough is enough.
“NSW public psychiatrists are the worst paid in the country. A third of our jobs cannot be filled because psychiatrists can earn two to three times as much in private. We need to stop the haemorrhage of doctors leaving the system.
“The NSW government wants to pay locums twice as much as we are asking for. Locums who don’t know our patients or systems. Locums who probably don’t exist. This is fiscally irresponsible, will be a worse experience for patients and their families, and if they can’t find enough doctors, it will be catastrophic.
“Mental health care is in absolute crisis. Fixing it starts with attracting and retaining staff to do the work. Solidarity with our nursing colleagues who also deserve better pay for the work they do.”
