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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-11 Daily Xml
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SA Health Workplace Culture

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:14): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about workplace harassment and bullying in SA Health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: During the last sitting week in this chamber, my colleague the Hon. Frank Pangallo asked the Treasurer a question about the rate of work-related harassment and/or bullying within the Department of Treasury and Finance. While those figures were very disturbing, it turns out that they were much worse within SA Health.

Figures released by the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment last week revealed that the number of workers compensation claims for worker-related harassment and/or bullying in SA Health totalled more than 330 cases over a five-year period, including seven cases of sexual harassment, and that the total claims cost to the taxpayer was more than $8.2 million.

They are off the back of findings of the Medical Board of Australia, which undertook its medical training survey that I have asked the minister about previously. That survey found that 34 per cent of doctors in training reported they had experienced and/or witnessed bullying, harassment or discrimination over the last year alone. My questions to the minister are:

1. Are you concerned that 330 public servants employed by SA Health reported that they have been harassed or bullied in the workplace, including those cases of sexual harassment that I have alluded to?

2. Given the Medical Board of Australia survey, how many of those victims were doctors, junior doctors and nurses?

3. How many victims were harassed by consultants and specialists, nurses or midwives, and patients and family carers?

4. Given the latest statistics, do you believe there is a serious problem of bullying and harassment in the state's public health system?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:16): I certainly join the honourable member in condemning bullying and harassment in the workplace and I, too, recognise the valuable work done by the Medical Board of Australia in their medical training survey.

The most recent report, for example, indicated that 20 per cent of South Australian respondents had experienced bullying, harassment and/or discrimination in the previous 12 months. That was slightly below the national level of 21 per cent but still completely unacceptable. It was also down compared with 2019—it was 22 per cent in that year. So, whilst any level is unacceptable, I am pleased to see movement in the right direction and I am very keen to continue to work with the employee representative organisations, professional associations and management at all levels to drive better culture.

I thank the honourable member for mentioning the responsibility for professional colleagues. I think there is a growing awareness amongst professional colleges of their responsibility in terms of their contribution to culture. Certainly, the culture of the individual workplace impacts on the teams that work in there, but there is also no doubt that the professions themselves drive a culture that people take into the workplace.

In that regard, I would particularly commend the work of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, which has, at a national level and in its state chapters, driven a much better culture. I know a number of professions are looking to improve that. There is, of course, work being done at the local LHN level as well as at the departmental level.

The honourable member particularly highlights the issue of students. I know that the South Australian medical education accreditation committee, I think it is called, is very keen to play its part, through the accreditation process, to improve the safety of the workplace for South Australian students and doctors in training.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Bonaros, a supplementary.

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