That most of the Doctors are after money to recover their cost of Education.
But this one takes the cake!
Story:
A doctor in regional NSW has been paid almost $700,000 in overtime during a two-year period to cover the roster of a public hospital.
It has been revealed the doctor has been paid as much as $39,598 in one month to work extra hours and stay on-call in addition to normal hours, a practice being condemned by the Australian Medical Association.
The Sun-Herald has obtained documents under freedom of information laws that revealed the doctor had earned $333,073 in overtime in the 2010-11 financial year and the same doctor earned $348,686 in overtime the previous year on top of the salary earned for working in the unnamed public hospital.
The doctor is described as a career medical officer, a position which on average earns about $150,000 a year for a 38-hour week. NSW Health has refused to identify the hospital or the local health district involved.
But the large overtime amounts caught the attention of the NSW Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, who has reported to State Parliament that it was the highest amount paid to a single employee in NSW Health.
Internal NSW Health documents obtained by The Sun-Herald showed contradictory explanations for the excessive amounts of overtime.
In one internal report prepared after Mr Achterstraat queried the payment, NSW Health said the overtime was worked by a full-time career medical officer who had good clinical skills and ”works agreed shifts to minimise the use of locums per agreement with the hospital’s medical director”.
However, another NSW Health email stated: ”Although it would have been cheaper to use locums more often that [sic] pay this overtime, the need for experienced local knowledge and reliability was a key.”
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