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Training for junior doctors could be a casualty if the private sector runs the new Lower Hunter hospital, a doctors’ union says.
Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, executive director Andrew Holland told a public forum in Maitland that ASMOF members feared training would be “completely undermined” under a public-private partnership at the Lower Hunter hospital.
He said private hospitals favoured contract-based models for doctors, which meant specialists came to the hospital to perform the necessary procedure and left.
“The major teaching hospitals are where the junior doctors are trained – where our senior members take junior doctors under their wing, supervise them and train them to become the future staff specialists in our public and private system,” he said.
“Our members have a real concern that under a new model... that the training of [junior] doctors will be completely undermined.
“The future for our doctors and the doctors that do such a wonderful job will be undermined.”