News
Unpaid work an issue for Vic DiTs
Unpaid work is a continuing issue for doctors in training (DiTs) in Victoria with 63 per cent of doctors reporting they work 5 or more hours of unrostered overtime per week and 53 per cent reporting they never get paid for it.
The AMA Victoria DiT Subcommittee have released their Hospital health check results about working conditions for doctors in training in Victorian public hospitals. Your state AMA, working for you.
Key findings
- Unpaid work is a continuing issue with 63 per cent of doctors reporting they work 5 or more hours of unrostered overtime per week and 53 per cent reporting they never get paid for it.
- Despite the requirement in the DiT Enterprise Agreement 2013 that a health service must have registrar training time displayed in their rosters, this is not happening in 60 per cent of cases reported in this survey.
- Over half of the DiTs reported they will often or always come to work when they should have stayed home due to illness.
- 45 per cent of DiTs reported that they have experienced bullying or harassment and 20 per cent of respondents described being asked inappropriate questions during an interview such as marriage plans or sexual orientation.
- 65 per cent of respondents rated their hospital’s support for their mental health and wellbeing as poor to average, while 53 per cent of respondents also described the morale of the medical staff in their workplace as poor to average.
- While it is pleasing to see that 58 per cent of respondents would recommend their health service to other colleagues, there is still a substantial number who would not.
