An upcoming restructure of the Southern NSW Local Health District (LHD) has raised the concerns of the Health Services Union, which claimed 30 to 50 jobs will be lost and it will affect the services that are offered.
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On Thursday, about 35 union members held a meeting outside the South East Regional Hospital in Bega during their lunch break over the matter, with HSU organiser Mark Jay saying the hospital was already "nearly on skeleton staff".
"Now we've got the local health district coming forward and saying 'we want to take another 30 jobs away'," he said.
"We see here at Bega already significant shortfall in positions being filled, surgery and wait lists being extended."
He said a "lot of people" across the health district - which stretches from Eden, Bombala and Queanbeyan to Crookwell - had already taken voluntary redundancies as they could not manage their current workload.
Mr Jay lambasted the lack of consultation from the LHD to its staff over the restructure, saying it was "trying to dictate terms and conditions", and attacked the restructure document itself as he claimed it was filled with errors.
"How can you comment on a document that's got so many mistakes and errors in it?" he said.
Two HSU delegates from SERH, who wished to remain unnamed, were concerned the restructure would result in the health district becoming "Queanbeyan-centric" and the regional sites would not receive the attention they needed.
"We do not want decisions to be made from Queanbeyan. People without an idea of what's happening locally shouldn't be making decisions on our behalf," one said.
They said jobs that could be lost at SERH included the heads of pharmacy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy as well as positions in administration.
"And that is what we can ascertain from an error-riddled document," one said.
In response to Australian Community Media's questions, the Southern NSW LHD sent a pre-prepared statement in which a spokesperson said there would be no loss of clinical front line positions during the restructure.
"The district will be seeking to redeploy any staff in management or leadership roles whose position has changed," they said.
"The health district has received over 700 items of feedback from staff and industrial organisations during extensive consultation on the proposed leadership and management restructure."