Territory doctor Simon Quilty’s unpaid overtime could be ‘tip of iceberg’ costing taxpayers millions

The doctors’ union says ‘the government will almost certainly say doctors claimed X hours of overtime and we paid 99 per cent of those claims’, but that’s not the whole story.

NT doctors union president Thomas Fowles says a claim for thousands of hours of unpaid overtime by Simon Quilty could be ‘the tip of the iceberg’. Picture Julianne Osborne

Doctors working unpaid overtime is “endemic” in the Territory and throughout Australia with a Federal Court action launched by prominent NT medico Simon Quilty labelled “the tip of the iceberg”.

Dr Quilty is suing the Territory government for thousands of hours of unpaid overtime during a period of almost a decade working in Territory hospitals, with the doctors’ union warning he is unlikely to be alone.

President of the NT branch of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation Thomas Fowles said “doctors not being paid for their overtime is really endemic”, or in less technical language “it’s really common”.

Dr Fowles said “thousands of hours of doctor time are unpaid” right across the health system, pointing to a recent class action estimated to cost the Victorian government up to $250m as an example of the “serious financial liabilities” on the table.

Dr Fowles said there were a number of “overarching reasons” the problem had gotten so bad, including the fact senior doctors supervising trainee doctors were also responsible for approving overtime.

“Your immediate manager, who approves your overtime, is also the person who reports to the medical college (on) how well you’re doing at training,” he said.

“So doctors often feel they’re unable to claim because it will reflect badly on them, so they will do extra hours but feel like ‘If I claim for this, my supervisor will think I’m a slow doctor who’s not getting things done, who’s not good enough’.”

Simon Quilty, now a research fellow at the Australian National University, as a young doctor at Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital in 2011.

Dr Fowles said while overtime that “does make it into the payroll system” was generally paid, “the problem (arises) before those claims make it in”.

“There’s the overtime that’s never claimed, there’s the overtime that’s refused or is claimed but never makes it into the payroll system because their manager says ‘No, don’t submit your overtime’,” he said.

“So the government will almost certainly say ‘Well no, doctors claimed X hours of overtime and we paid 99 per cent of those claims’.”

A survey conducted last year by the Medical Board of Australia found almost two thirds of trainee doctors reported working more than 40 hours per week, including one in 10 who reported working more than 60 hours per week.

“In addition, one in five (22 per cent) indicated that working unrostered overtime ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’ had a negative impact on their training,” the survey found.

“Payment for unrostered overtime occurred at least ‘most of the time’ for 68 per cent of survey respondents.”

In the NT, 21 per cent of trainee doctors reported having to work unpaid overtime, compared with 18 per cent nationally, with less than half reporting never having to do so.

Rural Doctors Association of Australia chief executive Peta Rutherford said while the RDAA hadn’t had reports of specific instances of unpaid overtime, “I’m sure they’re out there”.

Dr Quilty claims the department failed to pay his overtime entitlements while he was working as a senior registrar and specialist clinician at the Katherine and Alice Springs hospitals. Picture: Alex Treacy

“If a rural doctor has performed duties or provided clinical care or there’s been the expectation that they would be available to provide the clinical care then they should be paid for that,” she said.

“A lot of doctors aren’t necessarily clock-watchers, they’ll get called in, they provide the care that their community needs and they go home.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of rural doctors that have come in and provided care to patients without necessarily billing that back to the service.”

Ms Rutherford said unpaid overtime had “been a big issue in the last few years” that had “really come to a head in many states”.

“We know a lot of senior doctors have worked extended hours for a long time and that’s just what they did but I think that culture is changing,” she said.

“Certainly the generation coming through don’t accept that type of behaviour and even the older doctors are starting to look around and go ‘Well hang on, that really isn’t fair and it’s not tolerated’.”

NT Health was contacted for comment but did not respond by time of publiction.