Page 1425 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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Centenary Hospital for Women and Children—unauthorised examinations
Canberra Hospital—staff safety
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.53): This evening I want to reflect on two issues that have come to my attention about the Canberra Hospital. It will be no surprise that one of these issues is the complaint by a woman, who did not leave her name, about “being forced into a vaginal examination without my consent by a senior doctor to determine whether I was progressing”. The complainant made the complaint, again in her own words, for “this not to happen”. As members know, some of us received an email on the weekend that confirms that this complaint was lodged.
Looking at the email chain which I received on the weekend, I can see that the hospital acted very quickly on this complaint. It is clear that within an hour this complaint had been sent to the CEO’s office, the office of the chief nurse and the CMC of the birth suite. From the time the complaint came in on 7 February until the CMC of the birth suite sent out an email reminding people of procedures, less than an hour had passed. I think that that is fantastic and I want to compliment staff at the hospital for the rapidity with which they acted. Given that this was an anonymous complaint, there was not much more that a conscientious staff member could do. I thank them for their conscientiousness.
The thing that is baffling is the response from senior management after this complaint became public. There was denial, shooting the messenger, victim blaming and outbursts from the CEO and the minister. Why, when front-line staff acted so appropriately, did management overreach to the extent of denying that the complaint had been made and denying that such an incident had taken place? I will leave that for members to contemplate. For me, it will be an important line of investigation in the inquiry into maternity services.
The other issue, which is more alarming than this, is the safety of staff at the Canberra Hospital. This afternoon I have written to the minister for health asking her to confirm the accuracy of three separate reports that I have received that recently a male nurse who was leaving his shift at the Canberra Hospital was stabbed in the neck and the back in the car park opposite the Canberra Hospital on Yamba Drive. If this is true, this is a very alarming incident indeed.
From time to time staff have expressed to me their concern about accessing staff car parks late at night. Mainly they are women. In this case, it appears that the victim was a man. If this incident did take place, the minister needs to immediately inform staff about what extra security measures are in place to ensure that staff are safe, especially those who leave work late at night.
Staff at the Canberra Hospital and Canberra Health Services do a fantastic job every day under trying circumstances. Their workplace is tougher than most and they deserve to feel safe at work. That is why I have worked hard for an inquiry into workplace bullying and culture.
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