Discussions about provision of relief cover for a Pharmacist at MH who took on responsibility for 10 palliative beds on top of her full time BMT role on a 3 month temporary basis (which has now stretched to 5 months) did not succeed in fixing the problem.

As a result, the AHP sought the assistance of FWA on Thursday to ensure that the well-being of the pharmacist did not continue to be compromised by unreasonable levels of overtime.

MH has agreed to find solutions for cover by 5 July 2010 and to review the palliative care workload over the next month to determine the ability of the department to cover this work on an ongoing basis.  Crucial to this dispute was the records of overtime maintained by the pharmacist concerned.

AHP members are reminded to record their ACTUAL hours of work on their timesheets. This is particularly at Melbourne Health where MH is seeking to manipulate workloads rather than employing additional staff, despite acknowledgements that our members are being worked excessively hard.