Page 626 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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So quite clearly Dr Gallagher raised serious concerns and made complaints to the General Manager of the Canberra Hospital in 2007—so serious that she resigned. But what have we seen? There is denial that there have been any complaints. Was what Dr Gallagher said and raised a complaint? Peggy Brown, who is the Acting Chief Executive of ACT Health, said on Triple 6 radio: “There are a number of ways that they can raise their concerns. They can raise them through the management of Canberra Hospital.” So quite clearly the chief executive is saying that if you raise concerns with the management of Canberra Hospital that is a complaint; that is a way to raise it. And that is exactly what Dr Gallagher and others did. They raised their concerns directly with management at the Canberra Hospital. But as late as 17 February the acting chief executive denied that any complaints had been made. This is from ABC Online:
ACT Health acting chief executive Peggy Brown also says the department has not received any formal complaints.
Dr Brown says she would be happy to investigate any concerns.
“We have an open approach and if there are concerns we clearly want to address them but we can’t address them,” …
“But we can’t address in the absence of information about what the concerns are.”
Dr Brown says they have spoken to staff currently working in the unit and no issues were raised.
“I don’t believe all the people who’ve left in the last 15-18 months are disgruntled with the system,” she said.
I do not understand what is happening here. We have Dr Gallagher saying that she raised these issues with the General Manager of Canberra Hospital—serious issues; so serious that she then resigned. Then we have the chief executive saying that those concerns raised with the general manager would constitute a formal complaint. And then we have the acting chief executive and the minister saying that no complaints had been made. So I do not know what is going on. Either somebody is not telling the truth or the system has broken down. I am willing to believe the former. But, when you have numerous obstetricians making complaints to management and the Acting Chief Executive of ACT Health is denying that any complaints have actually been made, you have some serious problems. Something has gone very seriously wrong with the management and the procedures of making complaints at the Canberra Hospital. That is beyond question.
The denial by the minister that there were any complaints was also wrong. Maybe she had not been informed of the complaints that were made to the General Manager of the Canberra Hospital. Maybe Peggy Brown was unaware of those complaints. But somewhere in the chain of command, in the line of communication between the management of the Canberra Hospital and the minister, there has been a breakdown in communication that has meant that the minister and the chief executive have misled
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