By Broede Carmody and Henrietta Cook
The Royal Melbourne Hospital will consider stronger whistleblower protections to ensure medical registrars and junior doctors are more likely to come forward if they have witnessed a more senior colleague participating in unethical conduct.
The move follows revelations in The Age that Victoria’s corruption watchdog is investigating a handful of surgeons working at the Parkville hospital for allegedly billing the Transport Accident Commission for medical procedures that were never carried out on patients and fraudulently claiming assistant surgeon fees.
Royal Melbourne Hospital chief executive Shelley Dolan has told staff to expect a whistleblower overhaul. Credit: AAP
In a leaked all-staff email, seen by The Age, Royal Melbourne Hospital chief executive Shelley Dolan confirmed she would soon contact staff regarding “how we can strengthen our escalation systems”.
“We have a strong culture of speaking up at the RMH,” Dolan wrote. “We must all continue to work together to build a safe environment where everyone feels they can raise concerns or ask questions when something doesn’t seem right.”
But one hospital source, who did not want to be identified because they feared it could jeopardise their employment, questioned whether better reporting mechanisms were needed.
“We already have enough reporting mechanisms,” they said. “You can report all you like, it’s how those reports are handled.”
The source criticised the hospital for taking so long to resolve the allegations of fraudulent billing, pointing out that they were first raised with management in 2020. They said the saga had tainted the reputation of all surgeons, and morale was at an all-time low.
“We do not know who is being investigated and who to trust,” they said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said a whistleblower overhaul should have been done at the Royal Melbourne Hospital years ago.
“People made serious complaints. They should have been taken seriously at the time,” Crozier said.
A Royal Melbourne Hospital spokesperson declined to comment.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is also looking into concerns that some surgeons have monopolised lucrative TAC patients and even prioritised them over public patients waiting for urgent surgery.
The government-owned TAC is funded by Victorian motorists to pay for the treatment of road accident victims, and reimburses hospitals, surgeons and anaesthetists for each TAC patient they treat.
Surgeons and anaesthetists bill the TAC for this work in addition to receiving an hourly rate from their hospital, an arrangement insiders say creates a perverse financial incentive for some surgeons to prioritise TAC patients.
Another hospital source, speaking previously to The Age, on the condition of anonymity, about the alleged egregious billing practices said: “Everyone knows what happens; they are too frightened to say anything.”
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