Hospital ‘wage theft’ fight escalates as more doctors get set to sue their bosses

Doctors at a string of hospitals are set to take their bosses to court after a landmark “wage theft” class-action hearing wraps up on Friday.

Junior doctors at Monash Health are set to take their hospitals to court after a landmark wage theft class-action hearing wraps up.

More Melbourne hospitals are set to be sued by their own doctors after a landmark wage theft class-action hearing wraps up in the Federal Court on Friday.

Junior doctors at Monash Health will be the next to take their hospitals to court as part of a wider fight over non-payment for overtime and what they claim are excessive and dangerous working hours.

Similar action is also pending against Western Health, Latrobe, Eastern Health and the Royal Women’s hospitals over claims those employers breached the Fair Work Act.

The looming trials follow a class action by 1600 junior doctors against Peninsula Health, which hearing began closing submissions in the Federal Court on Thursday following six weeks of evidence.

Justice Mordecai Bromberg will hear the final closing submissions in the Peninsula Health matter today. But lawyer Hayden Stephens, who is running the class actions along with Gordon Legal, confirmed others would follow regardless of the decision was returned.

“If you don’t pay for overtime worked, you can’t track the hours worked. If you can’t track the hours worked, you end up with fatigued doctors at the brink of collapse – which ultimately translates to poorer patient care and outcomes,” Mr Stephens said.

After years of publicly raising claims of dangerously long working hours and system-wide non-payment for overtime, class actions were first mooted in 2019 to force Victoria’s hospitals to pay million of dollars in wages, dating back six years.

Chairman of the Australian Medical Association's doctors in training, Dr Lucy Crook, said junior doctors felt their work had been belittled. “The implication is that we don’t ­actually do much, and what we do does not have any value ­towards patient care,” she said.