Government inaction fuels industrial action: More public hospital staff join strike over broken promises

Medical Physicists and Radiopharmaceutical Scientists in South Australia will walk off the job today, demanding urgent action after nine months of stalled Enterprise Agreement negotiations. Their strike adds to a growing wave of unrest across the healthcare system, following recent industrial action by public-sector nurses and midwives in Queensland and NSW hospital clinicians – many of whom took action for the first time in over two decades amid worsening conditions.

Paul Inglis, Director at Professionals Australia, highlighted the critical but undervalued role these specialists play in cancer care, overseeing the safe delivery of radiation and producing life-saving radiopharmaceuticals essential to nuclear medicine.

“Since 2017, their wages have dropped 14.1% in real terms compared to CPI, and SA salaries are considerably lower than in other states. So far, the government’s only offer has been a 3% per year increase, which is well short of what’s needed to correct the wage gap,” Inglis said.

With negotiations stalled and government inertia blatant, Inglis warned the industrial action was inevitable.

“Medical Physicists and Radiopharmaceutical Scientists are paid up to 40% less than their colleagues interstate, and despite months of good-faith bargaining, the Government has not even responded to our specific claims.

“These clinicians have never taken this sort of industrial action before. The fact that they are now shows how desperate the situation has become. These are some of the most highly educated and specialised staff in our public hospitals, and we risk losing them to better-paid jobs interstate. That puts patient safety and cancer treatment capacity in South Australia at risk.”

Meanwhile, the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union (QNMU) has faced criticism by its members for submitting demands that barely scratch the surface of the crisis gripping the public hospitals. The union’s calls for “gender-based equity in pay,” “leadership support,” and “safe staffing” echo long-standing policies ignored under successive governments, policies rendered meaningless by chronic understaffing.

Their list of bargaining “interests” contains nothing that would fix the fundamental breakdown in a healthcare system buckling under poor infrastructure, understaffing, and the compounded pressures of a post-pandemic surge in patient numbers and illness severity.

The brutal reality on the ground tells a far grimmer story in QLD: Ambulance ramping is rampant, with only 60% of patients transferred to hospital beds within 30 minutes in 2024 – far short of the 90% clinical guideline target. In areas like Ipswich and Logan, some patients wait up to eight hours, risking deterioration or death before receiving care.

Public clinic and surgical waitlists have exploded to their longest in over a decade. Queensland patients now endure a median wait of 50 days for elective surgery, nearly double the wait in 2003.

This toxic environment is driving a nursing retention crisis. Turnover rates in 2022–23 hit 7% statewide and doubled to 15% in regional areas. A June 2024 QNMU survey of 20,000 members revealed that 46% were seriously considering quitting within the year due to fatigue and burnout.

In NSW the Labor government is compounding woes with wage cuts across the public health system, using the state Industrial Relations Commission to ban strikes and protest actions by nurses, midwives, doctors, and psychiatrists. Medical professionals face threats of de-registration for standing up for fair treatment.

“These attacks have been facilitated by the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association and Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, which have enforced the anti-democratic strike bans and insisted that workers can achieve their demands through plaintive appeals to the very government that is attacking their wages and conditions,” stated a spokesperson from the Health Workers Rank and File Committee (HWRFC).

The unfolding industrial unrest across multiple states exposes a public healthcare system in crisis, one where the voices of its most skilled professionals are being ignored, and patient safety is hanging in the balance.

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