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Winter 2004

Health professionals THE BACKBONE OF HEALTH By Tim Jacobson, HACSU Assistant Se

Unions in Tasmania, including HACSU, have embarked on a campaign to ensure Tasmania can continue to provide first class public health services to the Tasmanian community.

In a significant number of health professions, the lack of ability to attract new staff has resulted in inadequate staffing levels and an inability to provide proper services. An unacceptable burden has been placed on those remaining staff, who are committed to providing quality services.

There's a compounding problem.

With spiraling workloads, some professions have seen staff leaving for the mainland or overseas jobs for better wages and working conditions.

HACSU and the CPSU recently launched the campaign with the theme "Health Professionals, The Backbone of Health", the first purely health professional campaign for a decade.

The claim seeks to focus in on a number of issues introduced into the public sector as a result of the Public Sector Unions Wages Agreement, looking in particular at issues such as workloads, staffing levels and salaries.

Central to the campaign is a complete overhaul of the current award classification standards. The new standards, once agreed, will provide for clear clinical career pathways for those practitioners who wish to remain "hands on", without having to sacrifice salaries. The only real career progression currently is into management positions.

The lack of public hospital beds and strain on public hospitals has recently been a major focus in the media. Health professionals, in most cases, provide services, which may make hospitalisation less likely, alleviating this problem.

Problems for health professionals have been compounding for some time. Two years ago, in the Government's own report, the alarm bells were ringing.

It would be an indictment on this Government if the issues were not adequately addressed, and the public health system slipped further and further into crisis. The recent problems in Radiation Therapy Services highlight this.

Please support Health Professionals in their campaign. If members would like further information or would like to get more involved in the campaign, contact Tim Jacobson in the Hobart office on 6231 2253.