ANGRY staff at the state’s biggest hospital will hold crisis talks with Queensland Health director-general Ian Maynard today to voice concerns about the actions of their health board.
The talks at 10am follow an extraordinary meeting of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Medical Staff Association this week to discuss recent decisions by Metro North Health. That meeting expressed “deep and ongoing concerns about the governance of the hospital and the Metro North Health and Hospital Service board”, Queensland head of the Australian Medical Association Shaun Rudd said. Senior RBWH employees say morale at the hospital has been poor since the drawn-out doctors’ contact dispute earlier this year and is being exacerbated by a leadership void.
“The problem is there has been a lot of change going on in the top positions at this stage we have been advised that there have been 20 executive director positions that have been changed, either by termination, resignations or suspensions over the past 18 months and there are still 13 vacancies for the executive staff at the present time,” he told Fairfax Radio 4BC Mornings.
“It is very hard to be confident in the people who are running the place, the governance of the place, when these things are happening.
“The board may or may not be aware of this and the responsibility really lies with them.”
Dr Rudd said that lack of confidence may begin to impact patient care.
“It would eventually flow to patient care,” he said.
“If things are not being run properly from the top, then things tend to not be run properly further down the chain so it is very important that the governance of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and Metro North is very well done.
“And it is very important that the board understands how important that is and fixes the situation.
“They need to get confidence back in the staff and they need get staff in, new executive staff in and presumably work with them and make the place run properly. At this moment in time, no one is really sure why so many changes are going on.”
Dr Rudd said the hospital appeared to be running “reasonably well” but staff wanted to discuss the issue before it became a problem.
He said Ian Maynard, who had been called in to fix the doctor contracts’ fight, had agreed to speak to the staff association about their concerns.
Acting Metro North chair Vaughan Howell said the region had “dedicated staff who continue to deliver high quality patient care”.
“Recent performance results show that we are a ‘high performing’ Hospital and Health Service,” he said.
“To further improve patient outcomes we have embarked on a significant program of organisational reform.
“A key part of our reform is to better align clinical services to the needs of patients and our clinical leaders have set the direction for this improvement.
“The Board has full confidence that the executive, largely made up of clinicians, is well placed to lead this reform.”
Mr Maynard said he would meet with staff and was also seeking talks with members of the board.
“I’m available in whatever way the clinicians and the board see that I might be able to assist them,” he said.
He said a number of doctors and clinicians had raised concerns about engagement and communication in the hospital and health service, which he was taking seriously.
“However, if I look at the performance of the Metro North HHS it has delivered very significant improvements in emergency department waiting times, very significant reductions in elective surgery long waits and zero dental long waits,” Mr Maynard said.
State Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said the important issue was for the board to have effective engagement with its senior clinicians.
“The important thing is to make sure that there is effective clinical engagement, that they’ve got effective engagement with their senior clinicians,” he said.
“That’s a view that I know the board shares and I’m encouraging them to make sure that they build those bridges, and I’m very confident that they will do that,” he said.