Senior NZ doctors look to bridge Aussie pay gap

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Mon, 07 Dec 2009 1:03p.m.

Ian Powell of the Salaried Medical Specialist Association

Ian Powell of the Salaried Medical Specialist Association

The country's senior doctors hope to bridge the pay gap between Australia and New Zealand, when they re-negotiate their collective pay agreement - which expires in April.

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists says the lowest estimate of the pay gap is about 35 percent.

Powell says New Zealand also needs to be able to compete with Australia when recruiting overseas doctors.

The current agreement was signed in May 2008, after what the association says were "conflict ridden" negotiations.

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Comments

07 Dec 2009 01:24p.m.

Kenobi wrote:

You have to be kidding me, New Zealand doctors are not of the same quality as Australian doctors to start with.

A doctor I saw last week said "New Zealand is a third world country with first world aspirations" (he was trained in britain).

Our doctors are badly lagging behind the rest of the world in both knowledge and skills.

A 35 percent pay gap seems appropriate, given that conditions like Dysautonomia arent diagnosed here, but are in every other "developed" country.

There are good doctors in major fields however, like cancer, asthma etc because that is where the money is.

But if you arent lucky enough to have something common, then you get the worst of the worst.. you get doctors trying to guess their way to a diagnosis.

And given their lack of knowledge and skills, they miss alot, making a diagnosis take far longer than would be the case elsewhere if it ever gets made by our doctors at all.

Doctors here resort to fobbing patients off onto the mental health system when they cant guess correctly, causing all sorts of trauma for patients who have been told that they arent feeling what they say they are.