SA Health Employees

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:06): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about claims of doctors being forced to sleep in their cars.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: I think most of us were disturbed listening to an interview this morning on Leon Byner's FIVEaa program. His interview was with Bernadette Mulholland, the well-respected senior industrial officer with the SA Salaried Medical Officers Association, about the finding of a parliamentary inquiry released yesterday, which found patient safety at risk from doctors who in some cases are working nearly 80 hours a week.

Ms Mulholland made a number of startling revelations, one of the most disturbing being that a doctor at one of the public hospitals was forced to sleep in their car last night after finishing work because their employer, SA Health, won't allow them to have the legally required eight-hour break. She also claimed junior doctors are bullied to the extent that they are pressured into falsifying the number of hours that they have actually worked. My questions to the minister are:

1. Have you been made aware of last night's alleged incident and/or other incidents like it where doctors have allegedly been forced to sleep in their cars because their employers have refused to allow them to take their legally required eight-hour break?

2. Will you order an investigation into the alleged incident to verify its veracity and to ensure that it won't happen again?

3. Have you read and familiarised yourself with the report and its findings?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:07): I thank the honourable member for her question. I have not been briefed on the case that she refers to, and I will certainly seek further information. It is very important that we ensure that our health workers are not expected to undertake their duties when they are fatigued and, for that matter, that they should not be subjected to bullying. We want to be able to recruit and retain quality staff, and tired staff cannot deliver the best possible care to our patients.

The government welcomes the committee report, and we will respond in due course, but I do want to stress that since this government has been elected we have tried to deal with the cultural and other challenges that we have inherited. Work is already underway on establishing a bullying policy and supporting resources implementing the Mentally Healthy Workplaces framework. An SA Health hotline has been established to improve the accessibility of staff reporting bullying and other inappropriate behaviour and we are reviewing how the organisation educates leaders and managers. In particular, we are rolling out the ProAct program. It is a roster management program, which will help us to identify where people might be put in a situation where they are working for extended hours.

In relation to the case the honourable member raises, my office has raised the issue with SASMOA, and once we have the information we will certainly seek a briefing on it.