Vic elective surgery cancelled

Date: 15 February 2008

Talks in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission fail to settle the long running pay and conditions dispute in Victorian public hospitals

Over a thousand hospital scientists psychologists and pharmacists will walk off the job across Victoria on Friday 15 February 2008.

The 24-hour stoppage will hit public hospitals across metropolitan Melbourne and regional hospitals at Bendigo, Shepparton, Echuca and Cobram Hospital. The action is part of the dispute between the state's medical scientists, psychologists & pharmacists and the state government over a new pay deal.

Hundreds of striking scientists will form a picket line outside the Alfred Hospital in Commercial Road Prahran from 9.30 am on Friday 15 February 2008, and will consider the next stage in their industrial campaign against the Brumby government.

The Secretary of the Medical Scientists Association, Dr. Rosemary Kelly, says scientists are angry that the government refuses to negotiate. "We have had private conferences in the Commission but so far we have not received any offers at all. The government won't come out of its bunker and talk to us, but sends bureaucrats to the Commission with no authority to negotiate" she said.

Dr Kelly says the government knows what it will take to settle the dispute but has dug a hole for itself over its unrealistic pay policy of 3.25% per annum which it has already breached in relation to doctors, nurses and police, and which is well below settlements in other states and in the private sector.

Dr Kelly said the decision to strike had been a very difficult one for her members, and was a last resort after 6 months of fruitless negotiations. "The fight is not with the hospitals but with the State government" she said. "People inconvenienced by the cancellation of elective surgery or outpatients clinics should direct their anger to the Government and the Minister for Health where the responsibility belongs.

NOTE: Medical scientists include pathology scientists, neuroscientists, respiratory scientists, sleep scientists, dietitians, psychologists, pharmacists, medical physicists, radiation safety scientists, audiologists and clinical perfusionists.

For further information

Contact:	Dr Kelly
Union:	Medical Scientists Association of Victoria
Contact Mobile:	0418 543 683

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