It's been said about many government departments that the practice of the organisation investigating complaints about it's own senior or other staff is open to abuse. Try referring the complaint to the government watchdog - the Ombudsman's office - and you will simply get a response like "you don't appear to have asked the Area Health Service or the Department to investigate the matter". There is generally a suggestion that you send the issue to the CEO of the organisation or Department (or both) and wait for a response. When a non-response or disputable response comes back, the Ombudsman's office simply suggests that they don't wish to use their scarce resources on such matters. Sound like a brush-off? Well it really happened that way earlier this year. So the question needs to be asked if the Ombudsman's office is really structured to protect the public interest.
On 24 February 2009 a complaint was lodged with a Clinical Director of one of SSWAHS clinical streams. The complaint raised a number of issues related to the perceived conflict of interest and improper conduct by a senior administrator who carried out an investigation in which the administrator appeared to have an inappropriate relationship with the person making a complaint about a SSWAHS service and personnel.
The SSWAHS Clinical Director did not follow usual protocol when receiving the complaint of conflict of interest and improper conduct, instead they ignored it until they were reminded of it on 30th April. On 4th May the Clinical Director wrote to the complainant stating "please be advised that Mr .... has been provided with a copy of your complaint and is being given an opportunity to respond." That was followed by deafening silence until the matter was raised again by a direct approach to the SSWAHS CEO. I wonder how many staff of the SSWAHS get the opportunity to read the complaint made against them and are given the chance to just ignore it? The final comment of the Clinical Director in his 4th May response was: "I will inform you of the outcome of my enquiries, in due course."
The eventual outcome was that the Clinical Director did respond - in December 2009, at which time he repeated that the complaint had been investigated by the person being complained about and they had convinced the Clinical Director that they had not breached the NSW Health Code of Conduct. Oh really?! Perhaps we can save a lot of time and money by simply asking people committing illegal acts if they would like to investigate themselves and determine what sentence they'd like to impose on themselves. Think of the police, judicial and corrective service savings the community would gain. Perhaps the savings could be applied to upgrading Bowral Hospital to reflect the age and growth of the Highlands population.
Anyone can view the NSW Health Code of Conduct on their website. One thing it states is that complaints must be dealt in a transparent and timely manner. Yes SSWAHS, that sounds like the way it was done, doesn't it!
