Page 3932 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 29 October 2013
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complaints, through a review of the Medical Board investigations. It was seen by the AMA as a witch-hunt. And we know that the staff member who doctored the information in the emergency department started doing that shortly after all these bullying incidents in that heated environment. Let us have a look at what she said:
The environment in the executive at Canberra Hospital has increasingly become one where I felt fearful for myself and for other people that I work with …
I have had a litany of complaints across Health. I have had people in my office who are staff members who are fearful of making their complaint public. I recommend to them at all times to go through the due process outlined through the Public Interest Disclosure Act and so on. But these are members who have lost confidence—lost confidence that they will be treated fairly. It is a really sad situation.
The government continues to refuse to release the culture surveys that have been done throughout ACT Health, citing commercial-in-confidence. What a nonsense! Why don’t we get the results of those culture surveys?
I know that recently there have been some concerns from constituents who have contacted the opposition as recently as today about Disability Services. I was provided with a letter that had been sent to Mike Welsh. Mike Welsh is a journalist, as you would be aware. He is someone who does have a particular interest in bullying issues within the ACT government, and I commend him for it. I know he has had numerous constituents contact him about their concerns. Based on his radio show the other day, he received a group letter from Disability staff. I would like to read from a redacted version of that:
Dear Mr Welsh …
We are a group of disaffected Disability ACT employees. We heard your radio show and would like to write to you of our experience.
First off know that we will not give you our names. There are five of us and we are happy to provide initials—
and they do—
We will not give you our names because we will lose our jobs and because we need to keep working in this small town called Canberra …
Everything you have heard about Disability ACT is true. It is a toxic sinking ship, only the rats are still aboard.
The bullying and waste that has gone on in this Government unit is beyond anything you could imagine. It started with—
I will redact the name, a director—
who would scream at staff until they cried. You spoke of fund mismanagement last week. We rolled our eyes at that one. Administrative errors have seen Disability ACT fall deep into debt. One Director talks about it quite openly as the
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