Two junior doctors have been removed from a fourth hospital in NSW by a peak medical college over concerns for their welfare, this time due to gruelling hours and understaffing.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) temporarily withdrew its two trainees from Tamworth Hospital’s under pressure obstetrics and gynaecology department.
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Australia’s peak college of obstetricians and gynaecologists removed its trainees from Tamworth Hospital over concerns for their welfare. CREDIT:ERIN JONASSON
The loss of the doctors was a significant blow to the regional hospital’s capacity to provide medical care to pregnant women.
Last week, the Herald revealed St George Hospital’s intensive care unit had been barred from training junior doctors by the College of Intensive Care Medicine amid protracted allegations of bullying and dysfunction among senior doctors.
The college has also stripped Westmead Hospital of its intensive care trainees in response to reports of bullying and harassment. In November, the College of Surgeons banned Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s cardiothoracic surgery department from training its registrars in 2019 over similar allegations.
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Tamworth Hospital’s obstetrics and gynaecology department has not lost its training accreditation, and the temporary removal of the trainees was not triggered by bullying allegations, but concerns over unsafe shift work, overtime and on-call hours.
The trainees’ workloads were compounded by rising numbers of higher-risk patients, the retirement of a senior consultant, and shortage of locum doctors and trainees unwilling or unable to return to the department, knowing the workload they would need to manage, the Herald understands.
The Australian Medical Association’s doctors-in-training committee has repeatedly warned of the dangers of burned-out, sleep-deprived trainees expected to work untenable rostered and unrostered shifts, as well as multiple consecutive nights on-call, and discouraged from correctly logging their hours.
It’s not just their own wellbeing at stake. A 2018 survey of Australian junior doctors found more than two-thirds were worried they would make clinical errors because they were overworked and overtired.
Former RANZCOG president Stephen Robson said staffing country hospitals could be a major challenge.
“Having accreditation for training withdrawn is always a major issue for the community served by a hospital,” Professor Robson said.
“When the specialist trainees - who provide a skilled service to the women in an area - are withdrawn it has the potential to compromise the entire service provided to women. That can have major implications.”
The Tamworth case also highlighted the intractable pressures on the small medical teams at regional hospitals with little fat in the system to cover staff who retire or take holidays.
The Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation NSW president Tony Sara said the obstetrics and gynaecology (and psychiatry) departments in regional and rural areas were struggling to attract the numbers of trainees they needed.