ASMS Reaches Agreement With Health NZ, Looks To Next Steps

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists - Toi Mata Hauora (ASMS) has ratified a new collective agreement with Health New Zealand - Te Whatu Ora. The new agreement has been endorsed by 94 per cent of members who voted in an indicative ballot this week.

"This is positive news," ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton says, "but there remain significant and ongoing challenges in our public health system that need to be addressed.

"Unmet need, inequitable access to care and failure to staff and resource health services cast huge shadows over the work of our members. We will keep fighting for safe staffing and improved access to public healthcare."

The new collective agreement runs until the end of January 2027. As well as an effective 5.9 per cent average pay increase, the agreement fully restores doctors’ personal grievance work rights (taken away by the coalition Government’s amendments to the Employment Relations Act earlier this year) and enshrines Te Mauri o Rongo New Zealand Health Charter into the collective agreement.

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