HEAL Condemns Voluntary Redundancy Program for Sydney West Area Health Staff

HEAL MEDIA RELEASE
June 30th 2009

HEAL spokesperson, Janet Mays, has branded as outrageous a voluntary redundancy program available to all Sydney West Area Health Service staff.

“It is beyond belief that when we know there are job vacancies at BMDAMH and at Nepean hospital where Mountains residents are routinely shipped for services, that SWAHS could even contemplate a voluntary redundancy program” said Ms Mays.

“The community is constantly told that SWAHS is unable to attract staff to work at BMDAMH and here we have a program that is encouraging people to leave. This is absolutely insane and another example of appalling management practice from the SWAHS executive”.

The SWAHS voluntary redundancy program opened on June 29th and closes on July 17th 2009. Whilst the program stipulates that local management will be consulted to see if a person’s role is surplus to requirement before a voluntary redundancy is accepted, Ms Mays said that this sort of program absolutely sends the wrong message to the community. “If there are in fact staff that are surplus to requirements, re-training and redeployment should be the first options, not redundancies” she said.

“We need more doctors, nurses and health professionals, not fewer” said Ms Mays. “Anyone who has waited the obligatory 7 or 8 hours at Nepean hospital (for attention) will attest to that”.

“Sadly, this action appears to be more about budget balancing than providing enough people to adequately staff our hospitals. You wouldn’t blame any health professional for accepting a voluntary redundancy as they are already stretched to the limit. Clearly SWAHS management is focussed on the business of hospitals, not on providing the right resources to meet community needs”.