The interventional radiology (IR) staff at Westmead Hospital, a major tertiary hospital in Sydney, has collectively resigned after failing to reach a resolution with management in an ongoing labor dispute, Australia’s ABC News has reported.
Unless a last-minute settlement is reached, the hospital will have no IR service from 8 July, and this will affect essential services provided by the hospital across different departments.
On 27 June, ABC News stated that the entire 10-member IR staff submitted their resignations approximately two weeks ago, when protracted negotiations with hospital management over outdated equipment and inadequate pay stalled.
Staff members said they had first raised their concerns over four years ago. According to the ABC News report, the unit’s two dedicated angiography machines are over 15 years old; one is currently inoperable.
The mass resignations -- and the issues that led to them -- are emblematic of a systemic issue with the 975-bed hospital, ABC News noted. Staff members said that they had raised further concerns on numerous occasions about excessive wait times for routine scans that could delay the detection of preventable cancers; the wait times occasionally exceeded three years and affected the cardiology, renal, dermatology, and gastroenterology departments, among others.
Additionally, health district chief executive Graeme Loy resigned on 26 June, hours before a meeting scheduled for a vote of confidence relating to allegations of patient safety concerns and delayed cancer diagnoses at Westmead Hospital.
The head of Westmead’s gastroenterology department, Jacob George, had been dismissed the previous week; a senior doctor told ABC News that the dismissal was in retaliation for George raising concerns with management.
The New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health said that it is conducting an independent review into the allegations of excessive wait times at Westmead, according to the report; no time frame or deadline for the review has been given yet.
Following the receipt of a letter sent to hospital staff by Westmead Medical Staff Council Deputy Chair Jenny King citing the particular concern for patients with a positive fecal occult blood screening test, a 200-strong delegation of Westmead doctors passed a motion to demand the opportunity to meet with NSW Health Minister Ryan Park.
A spokesperson for Park told ABC News that he has requested a meeting with the staff council and NSW Health senior executives to discuss the clinicians’ issues and concerns.
This is not the first time Westmead’s radiology department has been at the epicenter of a standards dispute; in 2021, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) determined that Westmead’s radiology training failed to meet its standards; the program, which supported 15 trainee radiologists, lost its accreditation.
