Dear Member of Parliament,

I am a Queensland Health employed Radiation Therapist, and my colleagues and I provide life-saving cancer treatment to members of our community. We need your help.

We have been campaigning since 2020 to address the frustration, anger and loss of radiation therapists out of the Queensland Health system because of issues in our workplace including the lack of recognition of the massive expansion of our roles, and an untenable pay inequity problem within radiation oncology departments.

Queensland Health has conducted a review which shows turnover problems, failure to attract senior staff, RT’s taking on more clinical responsibility, and that the failure of health to attract and maintain staff means that the government’s investment in state-of-the-art treatment machines is not being fully utilised in some locations, or patients are having to turn to the private system.

My colleagues and I have reached the point where we are planning to escalate our actions and take them public - we have tried to deal directly with the Director General, we have presented a report, petitioned him, sent photo messages and letters. In good faith we agreed to delay bans late last year to enable him to consider options and respond but when he did finally meet with us this year he refused to act and again denied there was any problem.

He told us we should only do the work we are paid to do, and completely dismissed the idea that if Radiation Therapists did that it would place additional stress on the system and a need to employ more doctors.

We have now implemented work bans across the state. We know that they will increase pressure in the system, but we also refuse to be treated the way we have by the Director General.

We calculate our current billing ban costs Queensland Health $121,500 per day, money we would prefer to see spent on patient care and frontline health workers.  

Later this month, Radiation Therapists across the state will follow the Director General’s instruction for just 2 hours per day and cease undertaking some specific roles we are not paid for, that would have been done by Radiation Oncologists. As Radiation Oncologists have already verified they will be unable to resource this work without Radiation Therapists, this will represent a combined loss of 40 clinical hours per day (152 standard VMAT patients and 8 fractionated Gamma Knife patients). What could the Director General be thinking?

My colleagues and I feel that this Director General is undermining the government’s position on frontline health workers and diminishing our work for the Queensland community that has been shown to be leading the country. We are calling on the government to find an alternative pathway to resolve the legitimate issues we have raised and ask you to support our calls for the urgent intervention of the Minister’s office.

Signed

[YOURNAME]
Radiation Therapist