Page 2176 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2018
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say, “I need to tell you about this or that or the other, but I can’t tell you this unless you can ensure my anonymity. Because if anyone knew I had told anyone about this, my life would not be worth living.” That is a fear of bullying. When the nurses and midwives in the women’s and children’s hospital speak out through an anonymous letter to say, “We are concerned about the safety of women and babies in our hospital,” they are talked down to by the minister for health and her battalion of spin doctors.
The minister has summarily batted away the claims of bullying and harassment, simply saying that there are clear and respectful pathways to deal with these matters. Asking for a show of hands is not respectful, and this has never been the case. Anyone venturing down the so-called clear and respectful pathways is vilified in such a brutal way as to destroy their career. This minister does nothing to support the people who venture down these perilous pathways.
On 8 May 2018 Minister Fitzharris claimed in this place that the letter had come from one midwife. There is no evidence of that. It is clear from the letter that it was written by more than one person. Indeed the documents indicate that the management at the hospital acknowledged it reflects widespread concerns of the staff. A significant number of people have backed the midwives at the Centenary hospital. Those people are the patients in the hospital.
On 26 April the Canberra Times reported some of the patient experiences at the Centenary hospital. One woman said she had given birth in a car because the Centenary hospital was full, and she was advised to wait until she had a proper labour before coming in because the ward was full. Another mother spent hours in the hospital before being discharged. Another mother cited in the Canberra Times made formal complaints and sought legal representation after the birth of her twins in the hospital. Her labour lasted over three days due to delays at the Centenary hospital. She had one baby naturally and the other baby was delivered by a caesarean section. In this day and age that should not happen.
I recently asked Canberrans to have their say about health services. It was a survey about health services generally, but probably 50 per cent of the submissions I received were about maternity services. It is the highest issue raised in the survey. To be fair and quite frank, many of the people who responded to the survey across the board, including in maternity, said they had nothing but good experiences at the hospital. But many people were unhappy and a considerable number of concerns were raised, and some of them are quite alarming.
Patients talked about bullying and harassment that they had seen and experienced. They often felt they were harassed to leave the hospital when they were unready to do so, that they were harassed to take particular courses of action when their gut indicated they should be taking another form of action. A number of people said quite patently that they would not go back to the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children if they had further children. This is alarming.
Other issues raised were flawed advice that did not take into account the particular circumstances of patients; a lack of support from staff and assistance with
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