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Making coffee - Source: ONE News
Exhausted Australian doctors have been told to drink up to six
cups of coffee a day to stay awake during extended shifts, building
pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to seize control of state-run
hospitals.
A document on fatigue management released by health officials in
Queensland state recommended doctors ingest 400 milligrams of
caffeine to stay awake on the job, or the equivalent of six cups of
coffee, after warnings that patients were dying.
"For management to just say go and have a cup of coffee and get
over tiredness, it cheapens the whole issue," Australian Medical
Association Vice President Steven Hambleton said.
"We are talking about serious issues here, and this is not just a
serious suggestion at all. It can't be a weakness to say you're dog
tired," he said.
The recommendation followed warnings from a union representing
Queensland doctors this week that public hospital patients were
dying because dangerously tired medics were being forced to work up
to 80 hours without a break.
Australia's national centre-left government is under pressure to
seize control of the nation's ailing public hospital system,
currently managed by state governments with federal funding
support, in a $US20.5 billion takeover.
With fresh elections a year away, repairing the health system was a
key promise that helped underpin the 2007 victory by Labor over
rival conservatives, with Rudd campaigning tirelessly on health and
promising to fix public hospitals.
Rudd last month delayed a decision by six months, but said the
option of a full monty takeover was still on the cards.
In advocating the use of caffeine by doctors, the health department
document said that compared with other psychoactive drugs, such as
the prescription-only stimulant modafinil, caffeine was more
readily available and less expensive.
Salaried Doctors Queensland, representing medicos, countered that
pumping doctors full of caffeine was not an effective way to deal
with fatigue and doctor shortages, often filled in Australia
through recruitment overseas.
Queensland Labor Health Minister Paul Lucas said the state was
aiming to train more doctors and cap hospital work shifts at 12
hours over the next two years, but had no immediate solution to
fatigue and staff shortages.
"If the doctors are not there, we can't do it," he said. "We can't
say we'd rather not have it as it is and create doctors out of the
air."
