Doctors’ shorter hours a ‘burden’

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 5

Doctors’ shorter hours a ‘burden’

PA Wellington Shorter working hours for junior hospital doctors, introduced late last year, are sometimes proving more of a burden than the longer hours, the “Dominion” newspaper has reported. The superintendent of Wanganui Hospital, Mr Robert England, said that while longer hours could be ruinous to health, the shorter hours destroyed social life because they increased the number of shifts.

Extra shifts meant many hospitals were also finding themselves short staffed. Wanganui needed about five or six extra doctors and faced a wait of six months for overseas intakes.

The Health Department’s Hospitals Division director, Dr Alec Sinclair, said the department had helped with hospital board recruitment since October last year. Letters had been sent to health authorities in various countries.

Post-graduate deans of

medical schools in Britain had been approached and glossy material with hospital board application forms attached had been sent to the west coast of Canada, Australia and certain countries in Europe. Hospitals approached by the “Dominion” said they believed the Health Department was to reimburse boards for the extra wages but were unsure how.

The financial director of the Wellington Hospital Board, Krishna Swamy Jayaram, said the financial situation was not settled. "It is in a state of limbo, that is the worrisome aspect of it all,” he said. “The whole thing will be brought under a population-based funding system, but one really doesn’t know who will pay the piper yet.”

Dr Sinclair said the situation had been made quite clear. Supplementary payments would be made to all hospital boards, whether they were under-*

funded or overfunded, to meet the cost of overseas intakes. This would continue for this and the next financial year after which “some sort of formula” would be built into a board’s allocation. “It will be monitored very carefully; it won’t be an open chequebook,” he said. “Boards will be expected to look at options other than overseas recruitment.” The options included using senior specialists and bringing general practitioners from private practice into hospital rosters, Dr Sinclair said.