Short of cash before Easter? Error in payment of Queensland Healthcare staff

In one of the largest pay hitches of its kind in the recent years, the Queensland government has been forced to apologize for shortchanging thousands of doctors and nurses. Due to a recent new system of pay there has been an error in payment with several complaints from the injured parties. With the Easter break round the corner many are frazzled with the error.

Health Minister Paul Lucas has advised those responsible to immediately correct the situation and has also personally apologized for the mistake. And he has also promised anyone out of pocket from bank or dishonour fees will be reimbursed.

Mr Lucas said, "People's pay is their money, not Queensland Health's, and that is why it must be sorted out immediately…This is part of going to a new pay system that will be better for everybody in the longer term but I apologize for any errors in their transition."

This new system of pay according to him involves 140,000 manual adjustments reflecting roster changes or casual timesheets to be entered in the system. The problem was identified last Wednesday but is still not fixed after a week according to many.

The staff handing out pay, Mr. Lucas assured will work over the Easter break to correct the hitch.

Worse still it is anticipated that the same issues will crop up in the next pay cycle."I can't guarantee there won't be a few glitches in the next pay run but we're doing everything we can to help those affected," said deputy director general of corporate services Michael Kalimnios.

Dr. Ananya Mandal

Written by

Dr. Ananya Mandal

Dr. Ananya Mandal is a doctor by profession, lecturer by vocation and a medical writer by passion. She specialized in Clinical Pharmacology after her bachelor's (MBBS). For her, health communication is not just writing complicated reviews for professionals but making medical knowledge understandable and available to the general public as well.

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Comments

  1. Bernie Gee Bernie Gee Australia says:

    Just another laborious effort by Queensland's Government. What's there to comment on, is was predicted. Find the CEO concerned and sack the culprit.  

  2. john Unpaid john Unpaid Australia says:

    The payroll staff are doing their best trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. The problem is that the software that public works has chosen to use. The software I am talking about should roster the staff properly and then ensure they are paid correctly as well by checking their awards against the work they have done before it goes to payroll. This software does not work and has not worked for the last 3 years of repeated testing. The real bite here is that this same software is now being forced into a number of state govt departments not just health to use for rostering and award interpretation. So for now we do not pay nurses, next will be police and then teachers I suppose. Good luck Anna of ever getting back in after buying this lemon!!!.

  3. Ray Ray Australia says:

    Everyone one seems so surprised about this epic failure.  This initiative was doomed before it began.  It was never intended to be a successful result.  IBM are not in this to deliver any benefit to Qld, they are not in it to help Qld Health with a legacy technology problem, they are not in it to deliver a working human resource management and payroll system - they are in it to make as much profit from a contract possible.  They've done it by cutting corners, shifting blame, unqualfied resources, a revolving door of project managers none of which have ever delivered something like this before.  They get away with it time and time again and we as the Government do nothing about it.  Come on Crown Law - you have everyone in the public service behind you. Send this prime contractor a meaningful lesson and stop paying the bills - the system they delivered is not paying us so why should we pay them.

    Someone has to send them a lesson as the local papers are tough enough - they don't even get a mention in any of the News Ltd articles.

  4. Shannan Shannan Australia says:

    This is absolutely a systemic problem, not just due to the implementation of a new pay system.  I work casually for Queensland Health, and in the last 6 months, nearly 70% of my pay cycles have been paid as ad-hoc payments (at a time other than the scheduled pay run) due to processing errors.  I spend an incredible amount of time trying to rectify this on a fortnightly basis.

    So, I was not suprised when I was not paid this week.  And after spending 6.5 hours just trying to get hold of the payroll officer, i am told it may take 5 days to reach me.

    And as history certainly suggests, next fortnight I will be encountering the same problems.

    I could perhaps borrow money to get me through from my Mum or Sister, but they both also work for Queensland Health and have not been paid.

    So Happy Easter.  Looking for a new Job.

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
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