The Senate inquiry

 The Senate inquiry into "the conditions of employment of state public sector employees and the adequacy of protection of their rights at work as compared with other employees" reported on 17 June 2013. Submissions to the inquiry and the committee's report can be found here. The committee's conclusion is bland and inoffensive to state governments, but heartless and condescending to redundant workers: 

Public sector reform is a contentious issue. The committee understands that staffing reductions and voluntary redundancies can have a significant impact on the individual workers affected, as well as their families and communities. The committee trusts that state governments do not make these decisions lightly, and carefully consider the consequences of such reforms.

Two staff of the Tropical Public Health Unit made submissions, which can be found here (see numbers 3 and 35). These give an insight into how long-term workers were treated by the department during the redundancy process. 

A brief history...

Friday, 30 November 2012. These are some of the 40 Queensland Health staff gathered in Cairns to farewell each other. This photo alone represents, collectively, about 150 years of experience with Queensland Health. These are educated and experienced health professionals, experts in environmental health, health promotion, nutrition, health communication, disaster management and business management. One has retained her job and one has been re-employed part-time.

All of us were employed by the Tropical Public Health Unit, a network with offices in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Mount Isa, employing 141 people working collaboratively to protect and improve the health of North Queenslanders. Sixty-five of these 141 North Queensland health staff lost their jobs last year when the network was dismantled, with the disciplines of health promotion and nutrition completely abolished in regional Queensland. The four provincial cities of North Queensland now have four separate public health units attached to local hospital and health services.

The Tropical Public Health Unit was established in 1995 to protect the health of North Queenslanders from environmental health and communicable disease threats. Staff also worked on preventing chronic illnesses caused by risk factors such as obesity, smoking, poor nutrition, physical inactivity and poor sexual health.

Since its establishment, staff of the unit have identified and controlled some of the most important emerging and re-emerging diseases in Australia, including Hendra Virus  (which has killed four people), Japanese encephalitis (which has killed two people), Australian Bat Lyssavirus (which has now killed three people) and dengue fever (which has also killed three people).

Nutrition and Health Promotion staff have also been leaders in finding innovative ways to address the escalating rates of obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes in North Queensland.

The unit was instrumental in preventing dengue fever from becoming endemic (permanently here) in North Queensland. Between 1990 and 2012, the unit responded to 44 separate outbreaks of dengue fever in North Queensland, which affected about 4013 people.

The unit played a major role in coordinating the health response to pandemic influenza, which affected at least 2800 North Queenslanders in 2009. Staff undertook border control, contact tracing, health promotion and coordinated a mass vaccination program.

The protective and preventative health jobs which were undertaken by staff of the unit, but which no longer exist in North Queensland, include:

• health promotion programs for dengue fever, childhood vaccine-preventable diseases, blood lead levels in Mount Isa, diabetes, physical activity for school children, skin cancer prevention, public health emergencies (such as pandemic influenza or post-cyclone health risks)
• nutrition programs such as healthy eating for school children, better food supply in Indigenous communities
• sexual health promotion and STI control programs in Indigenous communities in Cape York and the Torres Strait.

Fortunately, the remaining staff of the public health units continue to provide invaluable services in communicable disease control and environmental health. 

Welcome to Newmanised! The blog for redundant QG employees.

In late 2012, I and 65 of my colleagues were made redundant from the Tropical Public Health Unit, a section of Queensland Health based in the north of the state. 

I worked for Queensland Health for 20 years and, like many of my colleagues, I didn't want a redundancy - I liked my job and I wanted to keep it.

Bitter? You bet I am! But I decided creating a blog would be cheaper than therapy, so here it is.

It's a bit of a vent, but it's also a celebration of the work we achieved. And a small avenue for promoting the skills of those of us still seeking work.

The term "Newmanised" arrived in the north via the bush telegraph from some govvy employee down south - many thanks, whoever you are.

If you've got a story to share, send it to newmanised@gmail.com (keep it clean and legal, please). I'll moderate contributions and publish to this blog. Contributions under 200 words preferred.