Senior clinician at Letterkenny hospital witnessed ‘subtle bullying’

A SENIOR clinician at Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH) told an internal meeting he had witnessed ‘subtle bullying” at the hospital.

Consultant General Surgeon Mr Kenneth Oaikhinan, Associate Clinical Director of the Perioperative Directorate, made his comments at a meeting of the hospital executive board last July, the Medical Independent (Mindo), Ireland’s only investigative medical news website for doctors and healthcare professionals has reported.

The meeting minutes, obtained under Freedom of Information law, noted that Human Resources would be asked to resend the ‘Dignity at Work Policy to all staff’.

The meeting also heard that LUH “will not tolerate bullying”.

A spokesperson for Saolta University Health Care Group told the Medical Independent that LUH does not compile statistics in relation to bullying reports.

However, the hospital added that LUH has “zero tolerance” in relation to workplace bullying, adding that the HSE has relevant policies in place, including the Dignity at Work Policy for Public Health Service (Revised 2022).

In September 2023, face-to-face sessions on the revised Dignity at Work Policy 2022 were delivered in LUH by the Saolta Group Lead for Staff Engagement and Wellbeing, Mindo reports.

Additional sessions were held in February of this year with further sessions scheduled for Q4 (October to December) of this year.

A Saolta spokesperson said: “These sessions have proven extremely beneficial from a staff point of view as they provide a forum in which to ask questions pertinent to their working areas; there is also an opportunity for feedback and for role play scenarios.

“Additional sessions were held in February 2024 with further sessions scheduled in Q4 2024,” said the spokesperson.

“Other supports also in place for staff are access to an onsite occupational health department where staff can self-refer. Staff also have access to the employee assistance programme, which is a work-based support service for staff and the organisation. This is a confidential independent service. It supports employees with psychosocial issues (psychological and social factors that influence mental health). These issues may be personal, work-related or both, affecting job performance or home life.”

All staff at LUH are encouraged to highlight issues or complaints to their line manager in the first instance, “where their issue or complaint will be listened to in confidence”.

Meanwhile, a HSE staff survey carried out in 2023 revealed 24 per cent of staff in HSE hospitals said they had experienced bullying/harassment from a manager/team leader or other colleagues in the previous two years, while 34 per cent had witnessed such behaviours.

Eighteen per cent of staff in HSE hospitals said they had experienced bullying/harassment from patients/members of the public in the previous two years, while 27 per cent had witnessed such behaviours.

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