Helmetfire:
I have been out of the immediate loop for a couple of years but was a flight physician on the Cairns 412 for about 5 years. Now have steady contact with one of the physicians who was still crewing until this last fracas erupted. He's also a union rep and one of the louder voices and has given me a fair bit of the goings-on.
Basically this is just one of a number of issues going on (and it was going on back when I was on the crew. Basically the cover Q Health offered through workers comp was little more than chook feed - which is why I took out my own. I got my own insurance cover because I was also flying myself around in my R22) none of the others said they could (or should) afford their own cover. They have a point about the life insurance.
In the interim there has been threats to pull out over single engine vs twins & IFR rated vs VFR night rated helicopters and crews. At Cairns there was also bureaucratic internal probs with staffing the emergency room with enough docs so that the helicopter could be manned as well. (don't know if that was a problem in other places but since it is the same employer (Qld HEalth) I can't see it being different.
In the middle there was turf wars over who should be manning the helicopter - docs or paramedics. And who should be tasking the medical crews - hospital or ambulance. As the other factors took hold the paramedics were going out more and more without doctor cover and hospital admin started seeing their staff pay budgets decrease so they were happy not to resolve the situation. (para's pay come out of Qld Emergency Services budgets not Qld Health.) At present there have been only a couple of reported disasters or worse patient outcomes from paras going out alone and no relatives know about them so no complaints (cynical ba.
d aren't I) to the health departments or lawyers- so the bean counters are happy to see the docs stay off the helicopters. On that point you have to realize that the doctors who go out aren't just your junior interns or even medium level doctors. These are all highly trained specialists in either emergency medicine or anaesthesia/intensive care. Several world studies (including one from NSW) have shown when you staff helicopters with paras or junior docs the patient outcomes are about the same but when you only use specialists the outcomes are much better - so we never sent any juniors on their own ever. But that costs more money so QH is happy they aren't going.
So it was just one of a number simmering problems .