New South Wales Health has settled a $230 million dollar class action with junior doctors across the state for alleged underpayment of overtime. The legal team behind the action say it's the largest outcome for an underpayment class action in Australia.
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00:00 A huge win indeed for these junior doctors, many who say that they work countless of hours
00:06 of overtime.
00:08 This class action case was initially lodged more than three years ago back in 2020 by
00:14 Morris Blackburn and Hayden Stevens law firms.
00:17 Now it alleges that hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime and other entitlements that they're
00:22 trying to claim for thousands of junior doctors working in the state's public health system.
00:28 The state's health department has now settled this for more than $230 million and the firms
00:34 are saying that this is the largest underpayment class action outcome in Australian legal history.
00:40 Now one of the lead plaintiffs behind this case spoke to News Breakfast earlier this
00:44 morning, Dr. Amira Fakhoury, and she mentioned how when she first started in the industry,
00:50 she couldn't believe how much the workload was for junior doctors and how much unpaid
00:55 work they were undertaking and says that this class action result validates her and her
01:00 fellow colleagues.
01:01 Take a listen.
01:02 I guess for me, it's never been about the money.
01:05 I did this for a cultural change to make it better for the next generation of junior doctors
01:09 for my fellow medical students.
01:12 And so a few thousand that we might get is a bit of a bonus, but most of us have now
01:16 consultants and a few thousand is not going to make a difference to our income, but it's
01:24 about the change that we're making.
01:27 Dr. Amira Fakhoury speaking there.
01:30 Now this class action still has to be approved by the New South Wales Supreme Court, but
01:35 we're hearing that up to 20,000 junior doctors will be able to claim once it's settled, Gemma.
01:41 Jess Rendell in Sydney.
01:42 Thank you.
01:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]