Page 4053 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 24 November 1993
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It was also recommended that there be a review of the rates of payments, to achieve national consistency. After all, this Territory is funded on the basis of national averages. We complain all the time about the fairness or otherwise of that, but we have to make sure that some of our payments are brought more into line. If we pay more than those rates, we end up having to cut services elsewhere. Further, we are going to require sessional VMO attendance sheets to be correctly filled out before payment; reform payment of on-call rates; consider data sharing with the Commonwealth to address the potential for fraud; review the admission and treatment of obstetrics patients; and address allegations of booking fees being required.
The issues raised in this report must be addressed. You cannot have one standard in society for nurses, one for plumbers and one for visiting medical officers. They have to comply with the same norms. No-one contracts a plumber on his terms and provides a blank cheque for work without any evidence of it. This is, in effect, what Canberra's VMOs received before 20 November. No-one in Australia has security of tenure and no-one in Australia receives automatic indexation. I ask: Why should Canberra's VMOs?
Just to give an example of the average weekly earnings, in 1991 the increase in average weekly earnings was 3.1 per cent. For a pathology specialist, the increase was 7.71 per cent; for radiology specialists 7.89 per cent; for general practitioners 5.02 per cent - the GP did not do so well; for physician specialists 9.04 per cent; for surgeons and obstetricians/gynaecologists 9.36 per cent; and for anaesthetists 10 per cent. In 1992 average weekly earnings increased by 3 per cent; for pathologists the increase was 3.25 per cent; for radiologists 4.7 per cent; and for specialist physicians 3.6 per cent. All of them were consistently well above average weekly earnings. What the VMOs argue is that their private offices ought to be covered by these extra costs. Well, they will not be covered from the public hospital system. We provide a lot of the facilities.
Since the eight-month strike in 1987, the doctors have enjoyed automatic indexation; a unique ACT schedule above the Medicare benefit schedule for fee for service work; choice over type of contract - sessional or fee for service; automatic right to renew contracts; arguably the highest rate for any VMOs in the country, presently $132 an hour; and generous on-call rates of $84 a day and $13 an hour for fee for service and sessional contracts respectively. The provisions in the previous contracts can be described only as outrageous and full of contradictions.
While the doctors call themselves independent contractors, they participate in collusive tendering, they expect security of tenure, they accept ACT Health paying the superannuation guarantee levy, and they will work only if automatic indexation is guaranteed. What greed! This does not sound to me much like independent contractors. The Government has offered contracts that abolish automatic indexation; give the hospital choice over type of contract - and we ought to have control over that; apply the national Medicare benefit schedule to fee for service work; abolish the automatic right to renewal; and provide a sessional rate of $132 an hour, to include the superannuation guarantee levy, and an on-call rate of $7 an hour for sessional contracts or $84 a day for fee for service contracts. This still provides very generous conditions when compared Australia-wide. There is no question that this is a generous offer.
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