Wow. Just wow. News from NSW health

Thank you for the heads up. I hope a resolve of sorts is found asap.

@Bow I hope a solution can be negotiated soon.

I just read this about how the psychiatrists say the current system is failing.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/19/nsw-psychiatrists-threatening-to-resign-say-its-not-about-money-its-about-the-collapse-of-the-system?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@Bow @chibam there may be last-minute developments

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/20/nsw-government-in-11th-hour-bid-to-postpone-mass-resignation-of-psychiatrists?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I hope the situation is resolved soon

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-21/nsw-public-hospital-psychiatrists-set-to-resign/104838258

@Dimity @Bow Quoting the article: "...they could be earning thousands of dollars a day [elsewhere]..." 😫

I despair.

These are the sorts of people they want to staff their mental health system with? How much does your average Coles, Woolies, or Bunnings worker make? Bet it's not that much.

I bet if you took the average yearly pay of a Coles, Woolies, or Bunnings worker, and added $10 grand to it, you'd have no trouble finding candidates in these sorts of jobs who would be willing to transfer over to the psychiatry industry. To say nothing of the long-term unemployed community, who are currantly making $0 a year!

Your staffing problems would disappear overnight (i.e. these "1 in 3 vacant psychiatrist positions" that are supposedly the 'true motivation' behind this mass walk-out), and you'd almost certainly end up with a much better average quality of psychiatrist, too.

The more I read about this, the more I come to dislike these people.

One of the previous articles I read said that the 25% pay increase these guys are demanding would amount to approx. $90,000 per psychiatrist. By my math, that means these guys are making $360 grand a year! And are demanding $450 grand! How many of their patients are making that much?? Do they even hear themselves? Do they even comprehend how watching them peg a hissy fit over a $360 grand-per-year lifestyle sounds to those among us who aren't making anything? It reeks to high-heaven of entitlement.

Again, I find myself eager to see this mob go out the door, and make way for a much better wave of psychiatrists who are quite content to sit in the trenches with the rest of us dregs, and live off the same sort of paypackets normal people have to make do with.

Wards are closing. People will have nowhere to go.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/21/wards-in-nsws-largest-psychiatric-hospital-close-as-mass-resignations-begin?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I hope forum people on NSW are doing OK

"slammed"
https://www.9news.com.au/national/psychiatrists-resignations-governments-plan-for-mental-health-system-slammed-amid-psychiatrists-resignations/7bf849ff-9e8f-4765-81cb-fa41dc327566#:~:text=mental%20health%20system-,slammed,-amid%20psychiatrist%20resignations

What an absolute mess!

At what point during a nurses shift are they expecting to pick up the slack and these extra duties? What qualifications/ study/ and experience gives them the power to diagnose and treat MH conditions? No one but psychiatrist should be doing that stuff.

back a number of years ago when I started struggling again with my mh one of my only options to get a diagnosis was to have a Telehealth appointment through the PHN. I had to travel 45mins away from home to have a video call with a psychiatrist that turned out to be in my home town. That video call lasted less than 1hr, he refused to consider my ED symptoms and just medicated me. Cost? $900 (bulk billed through Medicare, but that’s how much it was). Some psychiatrist that I have come across in the public system have been absolutely terrible for many reasons.

while I agree they are more than likely under staffed, if the system was shaken up a little and they changed a few things then perhaps things would change. A mass exodus cause they want more money is not the answer. But just like other groups of people who leave or go on strike and take the community hostage, they get their own way.

Yes it's a mess and structural change is definitely needed @Bow . But I agree psychiatrists have to be in the mix, I don't agree with @chibam that well-meaning unqualified people can treat complex issues and severe illness.

I'm concerned the problem could widen to Victoria as reports say Victorian public psychiatrists are paid only 3% more than in NSW.