00:00It's been almost 30 years since doctors took measures as drastic as this.
00:07Two and a half thousand young doctors rallied in Sydney.
00:10The walkout leaving hospitals with skeleton staffing.
00:13From today, public hospitals in New South Wales are treating only emergency and critical cases.
00:19Patients face the same prospect next week, with doctors planning to strike from Tuesday to Thursday.
00:25I've never done this before in my life. Most doctors find it very uncomfortable.
00:31They say they're underpaid and overworked.
00:34I myself have had to pull over in the middle of going home after a long shift
00:39and sleep on the side of the road because otherwise I would have crashed my car.
00:43Amongst their demands is a pay rise of 30% in a single year to reach parity with other states.
00:49A 30% increase equates to around about $75,000 for a senior staff specialist on about a $400,000 package.
00:59The government is offering 10.5% over three years.
01:03They have offered substantial increases, pay increases to other sectors, but not to doctors and nurses.
01:09The strikes will defy the state's industrial umpire, which yesterday ordered doctors not to take action.
01:15But the union has decided to go ahead anyway, unfazed by a potential penalty of $20,000.
01:21The union will wear any potential fines.
01:25The union insists emergency departments will remain staffed at safe levels,
01:29the health ministry confident the system can handle the strikes.
01:32I'd like to say we probably overstaff, and I think that's a good thing in terms of patient care and safety.
01:39That's not to say there's plenty of fat to take out in an industrial sense.
01:44But yet to land a deal with nurses and psychiatrists, its industrial headache is getting worse.
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