... the med super here booked a long time in the past a training weekend this weekend in Cairns.
Apparently the locum that was booked to cover this weekend let the administration services who look after locums three weeks ago that he could not cover this weekend.
Apparently the administration services forgot to let the med super know this - she found out this morning.
The advanced rural trainee registrar is also on pre-planned training leave, starting tomorrow and over the weekend.
Today is Tuesday. A locum who will be arriving tonight to start tomorrow will be doing a 24hr shift Friday and a 24hr shift Sunday. Obviously that locum cannnot also do 24hrs Saturday to make it a 72 hours shift without a break. Safer to have no doctor than a "dead tired" doctor.
Apparently if urgent cover cannot be found Mossman Hospital will be without a doctor for 24 hours 08:00am Saturday to 08:00am Sunday.
Interesting ... very interesting.
*waves at the minister's office media monitors*
PS. I plan on being up here 21st December - 10th January ...
2 comments:
lots of media publicity regarding the hours/conditions for Qld hospital doctors - including the statement (from story on the ABC site) -
"Part of Queensland Health's 102-page fatigue management strategy recommends 400 milligrams of caffeine to keep doctors awake on the job. That is the equivalent of five or six cups of coffee" -
(do you get a coffee allowance as part of your salary package?)
In your experience John, is the situation in Qld very different to other Oz rural areas?.
Rural is rural - without vast experience it is hard to be validly opinionated but it appears that rural areas are generally speaking under resourced. The interesting thing is that that proverbial has hit the fan in Queensland I guess because of the more signficant proportion of "rural" in the massive state of Qld. I have not seen anywhere a formal coffee allowance mentioned but I know from personal experience doing night shifts at Knox that coffee when fatigued can actually be quite dangerous. Fortunately the addiction specialists are pointing out how ridiculous the recommendation is.
Post a Comment