Mackay Hospital and Health Service didn’t follow procedures when hiring senior medical officer

An investigation into the hiring processes of a regional Qld hospital plagued by death investigations and the sacking of its board has now sparked a statewide audit. Here’s what was found.

Mackay HHS Chief Executive Susan Gannon.

A senior medical officer at Mackay Hospital and Health Service was “pushed through” the hiring system without proper processes, as an investigation reveals more than 18 doctors who were supposed to be supervised may not have been.

Now, all of Queensland’s hospital systems will be auditing their policies for recruiting, managing and monitoring senior medical officers.

The Mackay review, commissioned in January, looked at how 37 senior medical officers were hired by MHHS between January 2023 and December 2024, and credentialed.

The hirings were made amid a period of upheaval for MHHS after serious documented failures in the Mackay Base Hospital birth department led to at least three deaths.

The board was also sacked in 2022 and an interim in place for part of the investigation period.

But the investigators were not allowed to audit clinical cases, records, or information, making it harder to determine if there were any actual impacts on safety and quality, according to the authors.

The hiring of one medical officer, referred to in the report as Case Alpha, was not done by the book, leading to a “low but real risk” of impact to patient care.

Case Alpha was “pushed through” due to an urgent need to fill a specialist position which the report has redacted, along with the steps taken to hire them.

The doctor was also supposed to be supervised in his interactions with patients but there was no supervision, supervisor or plans documented.

That was the case for more than half of the 37 senior medical officers audited — they required supervision under law, but MHHS was unable to show documentation proving they were supervised beyond vague meeting minutes.

Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Tim Nicholls holds a news conference in Brisbane. Picture: Patrick Woods.

A failure to document supervision could lead to potential risks to patient safety if left unchecked, the report notes.

For Case Alpha, “it was not within the scope of this investigation to audit clinical cases to determine if supervision did occur”.

It is understood a clinical review of Case Alpha has been completed by MHHS, which identified the risks which sparked the Queensland Health investigation.

No specific adverse patient outcomes have been revealed from that review, which will not be publicly released.

When asked if Queensland Health would reveal which part of the hospital system the doctor worked in, to improve patient trust across the rest of MHHS, a spokesman said the report has been de-identified to protect people’s privacy, consistent with the Department’s obligations under the Information Privacy Act 2009.

And as for why all the other health services were being asked to audit themselves, the spokesman said it was common to apply Health Service Investigation findings and recommendations across the entire health system, “in line with our commitment to quality and safety improvement”.

The report also made clear that the defects in hiring were not an indictment on the doctor, who may have still been hired if the procedures were properly followed.

The recruitment team did not have dishonest motivations when they hired the doctor in Case Alpha, according to the report authors.

Originally published as Mackay Hospital and Health Service didn’t follow procedures when hiring senior medical officer