Stop Allied Health Job Cuts – Eastern Health – Support Exercise Physiologists!

Eastern Health recently announced a plan to make six Exercise Physiologists positions within Ambulatory and Community Services redundant. This proposal comes out of the recent Allied Health review.

You can sign our petition opposing the redundancies here. Your support for your Allied Health Professional colleagues is gratefully received.

VAHPA is particularly concerned about two aspects of the proposal:

1.     The replacement of degree qualified Allied Health Professionals with lower skilled staff.

2.     The removal of Exercise Physiologists (EPs) from multidisciplinary allied health professional teams.

Accredited Exercise Physiologists are highly skilled at facilitating patient self-management, and preventing avoidable hospital admissions. They make a valuable contribution to multi-disciplinary allied health professional teams. Eastern Health’s decision to completely remove all EP positions with no plans for future employment of EPs sets a dangerous precedent for the profession.

Additionally Eastern Health has been clear that this proposal is part of cost saving measures and that less expensive non-Allied Health Professional staff will be employed to fill gaps. All Allied Health Professional members should be seriously concerned about the broader implications of this.

VAHPA has written to the Minister for Health, Jill Hennessey, requesting that she intervene in this dispute. The union is also pursuing all available legal avenues to halt the proposal. 

Please sign the petition to assist us in campaigning against these redundancies.