Hundreds of doctors at Ballarat Base Hospital and Bendigo Health — two of regional Victoria's largest hospitals — stopped work for four hours on Thursday, in what the ABC reports is the first Victorian doctor strike in 20 years. The reasons doctors gave were exhaustion, low morale, and working conditions that some said had them near breaking point.
The Australian Medical Association Victoria says the grievance underneath is procedural: after a year of negotiations, public hospital doctors still have no offer on an enterprise agreement from the Victorian government. AMAV president Simon Judkins added a pointed piece of context — the state has had three health ministers in the past 12 months, and no offer has arrived under any of them.
"The new build won't solve the problem"
In Ballarat's case, Dr Judkins said the government was "kicking the can down the road" by pointing to the hospital's major redevelopment — a new emergency department and an extra 100 inpatient and short-stay beds, due in late 2027. "The new build won't solve the problem. It's staffing that will solve the problems," he said. "We hear from our doctors over and over again about the stress of working in public hospitals, about the length of their shifts, the number of night shifts, the fatigue they have at the end of the shifts... we want safe working conditions for our doctors so they can look after our patients."
The view from the wards came from Christian McCaffrey, a junior doctor at Grampians Health, which runs the Ballarat hospital. "My peers have to work hours beyond what they're rostered, go days without breaks, without going to the toilet even, without having a drink of water," he said. The pressure, he said, comes from the maths of the building itself: patients needing review or discharge "because there's 40 waiting in the ED for a bed". His conclusion: "I think the Victorian government is taking our sense of duty of care to our patients for granted."
The system behind the strike
The numbers back the mood. Last month the ABC reported Ballarat and Bendigo among five regional Victorian hospitals showing signs of system failure, including excessive emergency wait times. Of the roughly 3,300 patients who spent at least 24 hours in an emergency department between January and March this year, 2,330 — 70 per cent — were in regional and rural hospitals, with the highest numbers in Ballarat, Bendigo and Albury, which serves many Victorians.
Both health services took the temperature down where they could: Grampians Health and Bendigo Health said they respected doctors' rights to take protected industrial action. No government response appears in the ABC's report. What does appear is a warning built into the word "escalating" — Thursday's four hours were described as part of escalating industrial action, which frames the first strike in 20 years as an opening move rather than a last one — with the election in November, and the health portfolio on its third minister in a year.
