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An Australian hospital offered Dr Torben Iversen a pay package more than double his New Zealand salary in an attempt to lure him across the Tasman.
"It was very tempting to leave," said the Gisborne Hospital specialist, one of the overseas-trained doctors who have become the mainstay at some of the nation's provincial hospitals.
Dr Iversen's union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, says the offer, worth nearly $450,000, highlights the "crisis" New Zealand faces in maintaining senior doctor numbers amid a world-wide shortage.
The union, which is inching towards a possible strike, says 80 specialists have moved to Australia in the past 18 months, citing this in support of its claim for rises in salaries and allowances of up to 14 per cent over two years. It says the flow to Australia has become a flood, threatening the viability of public hospitals.
District health boards spokesman Nigel Murray, while acknowledging shortages, dismissed the "crisis" tag, saying there had always been a drift to Australia and little had changed. The union was scaremongering by using false claims of an exodus.
The boards had offered a 20 per cent pay increase over four years, which was "fair and reasonable", Dr Murray said.
Dr Iversen said the Australian hospital, which he declined to name, had approached him within the past two months and offered a package worth about A$400,000 ($447,389), including benefits such as housing, every fourth week off in addition to annual leave and flights home to New Zealand.
He would not reveal his current salary, but said that on average, New Zealand specialists' base salary was $145,000 and they often earned up to 20 per cent more in allowances - although the DHBs said the average, including allowances, was more than $190,000.
Dr Iversen rejected the offer because his wife is an established Gisborne doctor and their young children and teenagers were settled there.
He said he was also committed to colleagues in his department, obstetrics and gynaecology, which would soon be fully staffed after years of shortages, although two of the four doctors were locums on short contracts. "Even with that it was difficult to turn down such an offer. If I had had that offer when I came from the United States nearly five years ago I would clearly have gone to Australia," said Dr Iversen, who was born in Denmark and trained in the US.
He said it was hard for New Zealand to compete, when salaries were so much higher in Australia.
Dr Murray said DHBs had increased the number of doctors by 350 in the last three years and their senior doctor vacancy rate was 8-12 per cent and pay rates were "appropriately competitive" with Australia.
