Page 625 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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MR HANSON: Well, you can have the time to correct the record if you did not receive letters from doctors—or registrars, as I understand. The minister can correct the record, but I believe four registrars lodged formal complaints with the Royal College of Obstetricians, and they have been forwarded on as well. There have been allegations of a toxic work culture. I will quote from an obstetrician in the Canberra Times of 18 February:
“There is constructive criticism and there is destructive criticism. I think every registrar had been in tears … there were snide remarks and constant putting down.
Although the allegations have centred on obstetrics at TCH, a number of allegations of a similar nature have been made by staff and ex-staff across other areas of TCH to my office, and I am aware that several media outlets have received numerous similar complaints, not just from obstetrics but broadly from across the Canberra hospitals. Rather than accept these complaints at face value, the minister attacked the doctors and denied that there was any problem. I will quote again from her statements in the media on 18 February:
“If there is an issue let’s deal with it. But if there aren’t any issues that can be substantiated, stop throwing stones and damaging the unit,” Ms Gallagher said.
“Obstetrics in the ACT has a long and troubled history over a number of years, the politics go back 15 years. I don’t want to discount anyone raising issues … at this point all I’ve seen is a lot of mud being slung around and no substantiation.”
So basically she said there were no complaints. She said this was mud-slinging and internal doctor politics and that the allegations were without substance. She cast aspersions also on the letters that had been written to her, claiming that because they contained similar words some form of conspiracy must have been in play.
Let me quote from Dr Elizabeth Gallagher, who said in the Canberra Times of 23 February that she had actually raised verbal complaints and concerns about harassment with the General Manager of the Canberra Hospital in 2007:
“I resigned in 2008. I felt that I could no longer work at the hospital to the best of my ability because I was very concerned about what was going on around me. I started to lose sleep, I was not wanting to go in and not being as enthusiastic about my input over there, and I felt that it was not in my best interest to keep working there,” …
She said she was not told that a verbal complaint was not a formal complaint.
“My hope for that outcome would be that people can tell their stories so that their grievances can be heard and listened to, which I think has been a problem in the past. And also that a new process is put in place—
I will say that again: that a new process is put in place—
within ACT Health and the structure of the hospital to actually deal with people’s grievances in a much better way than has been done over the last few years.”
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