Page 413 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 16 February 2016
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My commitment as health minister is to drive a reform program working with the medical profession directly to change that culture. We have a comprehensive response underway and in place right now to do just that.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Minister, how successful in reducing bullying has the review been that you commissioned into the hospital last year, given the ongoing reports of bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment?
MR CORBELL: It is simply too early to say. This is a deep-seated cultural problem that dates back many decades. It is not going to be remedied in a short two or three or even six-month, period. It is going to take a sustained and ongoing effort to see this culture addressed, and it is going to have to come from the senior doctors who train their junior counterparts.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: Minister, what is the impact on staff morale of this bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment?
MR CORBELL: Anyone who experiences that behaviour will, of course, feel considerable distress and concern. The government is committed to providing support and appropriate frameworks to address those matters when they are brought to our attention, and that is why I have established a clinical leadership group within the hospital, led by our senior administrators and a number of senior doctors and representatives of junior doctors and with the engagement of the doctors’ professional bodies and associations, including the AMA. We will stay very focused on this task.
But as I have said from the very beginning, and as my counterparts in other jurisdictions have said, changing this training culture is not a simple fix and it is not a quick fix but we are committed to a sustained effort to see this culture change and to see a healthy and professional environment in which senior doctors train their junior colleagues to be the clinical leaders of tomorrow.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: Minister, how many young doctors have left ACT government employment due to this culture?
MR CORBELL: I think that would be a very difficult figure to ascertain.
Ministers—code of conduct
MRS JONES: My question is to the minister for multicultural affairs. Minister, in your capacity as the multicultural affairs minister, you were in attendance at the Multicultural Festival over the weekend. Stallholders reported to me that you went
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