KEY POINTS:
Millions of dollars are being pumped into recruitment drives for overseas doctors when they could be spent raising incumbent doctors' salaries, the New Zealand Resident Doctors Association (NZRDA) says.
Association secretary Deborah Powell said $1.6 million spent by the Southland District Health Board over the past two-and-a-half years had been a failed attempt to meet the doctor shortage.
The $1.6 million spend up was uncovered following an Official Information Act request by the Southland Times.
Dr Powell said the expense demonstrated the difficulty DHBs were having in attracting resident (junior) and specialist doctors.
This was "despite the remedy of paying higher remuneration to existing salaried staff being right before their eyes," Dr Powell said.
Dr Powell said millions of dollars were being invested in recruitment drives when doctors would happily stay in DHB employment if they were only paid competitive salaries.
"Southland DHB claims the recruitment drive has resulted in 28 senior doctors and many more junior doctors coming to Southland.
"Our members who are working in Southland struggle to account for those 28 doctors," Dr Powell said.
"We suspect the quoted figures include locums which could hardly warrant the recruitment drive being called 'successful', as Southland DHB has claimed."
Dr Powell said Southland's latest overseas recruitment drive, in conjunction with the Otago DHB, cost taxpayers $145,000 and yielded just one house officer to the hospital.
New Zealand house officer numbers had dropped since December with a net loss of 217 house officers recorded in the quarter to March 2008.
Dr Powell said money spent on recruitment drives needed to be channelled into permanent salaries.
"We need to retain our resident doctors by paying competitive salaries and reap the benefits of the investment we have already made in training these doctors."
NZRDA have been in negotiations with the DHBs since May 2007 to renew its collective agreement, but so far with no outcome.
NZRDA is seeking a 10 per cent per annum pay rise over the next three years which on a resident doctors existing salary of $23 per hour represents an increase to $31 per hour over three years.
- NZPA
