As a result of the cuts, at least one is being forced to look for more work outside of the South East region. 

“The attitude by the management was that if we didn’t toe the line we would be replaced,” SERH orthopaedic surgeon Matthew Nott said. 

“We are all pretty disappointed with the new contract. But we signed as we love this area and are committed to providing the best service here that we can.” 

The Southern NSW Local Health District said SERH was not a rural hospital as it was not small or remote, so offered standard metropolitan contracts with no Rural Doctors Settlement Package (RDSP). This package provides incentives for doctors to work in the country. 

Krishnankutty Rajesh, another orthopaedic surgeon at the hospital, said the surgeons had been forced to sign without being able to discuss the details in the contracts with management. 

“It was basically an ego trip – we were told ‘this is all you are going to get, the decision is final and if you don’t sign it by the 30th of September you have to leave’,” he said.

“If we said we weren’t going to sign the contract, then it would have left some of the patients high and dry with elective surgery being postponed for weeks or months while everyone flexed their respective muscles and the poor patients caught in the crossfire.”   

As a result of the removal of the RDSP in his new contract, Dr Nott said he was forced to look at reducing his on-call commitment at SERH from one week every month to one week every three months and spend more time in Canberra or Sydney. 

Currently, there are three orthopaedic surgeons at SERH who provide 24 hour trauma cover for one week each month covering the area between Mallacoota, Cooma and Batemans Bay, while a locum –  a temporary doctor from another region – works the fourth week.

Dr Nott said attempts had been made to hire a fourth surgeon, but it would be hard to attract doctors to the country with no RDSP. 

Dr Rajesh said if the surgeons did not sign the contract they would have been replaced by the more expensive $2000-a-day locums.

He said local surgeons only get paid if they treat a patient, while a locum would be paid a fixed amount irrespective of the amount or intensity of their work. 

Also, as locums do not perform an elective surgery such as hip or knee replacements, he said this would have had a “disastrous” impact on already long waiting times for these procedures.