Gold Coast Health: Coast doctors ‘bullied’ at work and afraid of making mistakes

Junior doctors on the Gold Coast report being bullied and are in fear of making a mistake due to exhaustion, a shock report reveals.

JUNIOR doctors on the Gold Coast report being bullied and are in fear of making a mistake due to exhaustion, a shock report reveals.

The Resident Hospital Health Check by the Australian Medical Association Queensland has this morning revealed that more than half of the training doctors at the Gold Coast University Hospital are concerned about making a clinical error due to fatigue.

Forty per cent of junior doctors at Robina Hospital share similar fears over the consequences of their long hours.

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The Gold Coast was given a score of C+ by its junior doctors.

The annual AMA report compared the employment conditions of doctors in training, surveying 38 per cent of junior doctors in the state.

The survey also shows 14 per cent of Gold Coast University Hospital doctors in training say they have been bullied or harassed.

The number jumps to 24 per cent at Robina.

Deputy Chair of the AMA Queensland Council of Doctors in Training Dr Marco Giuseppin said the GCUH hospital scored an overall grade of C+ and needed to improve across the

board.

The score is slightly higher than the D — the hospital was given in 2018 — the worst in the state.

Robina received a B-.

GOLD COAST HOSPITAL RATED THE WORST IN THE STATE FOR JUNIORS 2018

Gold Coast University Hospital. Picture: Glenn Hampson

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“It is very troubling that only 25 per cent of bullying incidents are being reported at Gold Coast Hospital and a third of those surveyed felt their safety had been compromised at work,” Dr Giuseppin said.

“There are clearly cultural issues still to be fixed.”

Despite the low score, Dr Giuseppin was highly complementary of the effort made by the Gold Coast Health Service.

“The Coast has some of the most outstanding hospitals who are actively encouraging their junior doctors to take part and work with us closely to engage and make change.”

“As you can see their result has improved because of their engagement on issues like training and accreditation that came up earlier this year.”

Half of the respondents felt Gold Coast Hospitals provide very good or excellent teaching and training, which is 10 per cent more than last year.

A spokeswoman for Gold Coast Health said the wellbeing of junior doctors was a high priority.

“We are pleased to see improved grades in every single category compared with last year’s

results and are encouraged by the positive cultural changes that have occurred over the

past 12 months,” the spokeswoman said.

The number of junior doctors completing this year’s survey increased five-fold from 2018.

Bullying is widely acknowledged as a problem in the medical field, and Gold Coast Health

has been tackling the issue internally as well as via programs with the Royal Australasian

College of Surgeons to change this culture,” the spokeswoman said.

“It is a serious issue that we’ll continue address and we are pleased to see the tremendous positive shift in this area of the survey.”

Changes implemented by Gold Coast Health include:

Ensuring junior doctors have a voice within committees across the health service

Implementing new governance processes in medical education to meet the needs of the junior doctor workforce.

Working to resolve issues related to overtime and fatigue.

Exploring the barriers to research involvement

Implementing a new Promoting Professional Accountability (PPA) program.