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Tuesday 5 November 2024
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Suicide prevention advocate nominated FRANKSTON District Basketball Association CEO Wayne Holdsworth is one of Australia’s leading advocates for suicide prevention. His journey began when his 17-year-old son Mac (pictured inset) died by suicide last year. Holdsworth was been named one of Victoria’s nominees for the Australian of the Year award. See story page 5. Pictures: Gary Sissons, inset supplied
Hospital ‘reluctant’ to pay staff Brodie Cowburn brodie@baysidenews.com.au PENINSULA Health has been penalised more than $300,000 after failing to pay a junior doctor for working overtime. Dr Gaby Bolton began working at Peninsula Health at the beginning of 2019, working primarily at Frankston Hospital. Her claims of unpaid overtime for work undertaken between January 2019 and January 2021 were
“substantially” proven by the Federal Court last year. It found that Peninsula Health failed to pay Dr Bolton on 208 occasions. Last week the Federal Court reiterated that Peninsula Health had contravened the Fair Work Act 2009 and ordered it to pay $316,260 to the case’s lead applicant, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation. The ruling made by Justice Bromberg read that the expectation for junior doctors to perform overtime work was “not only known to
Peninsula Health through various supervisory or managerial employees but were appreciated by Peninsula Health”. “There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that unrostered overtime work by junior doctors was not confined to Dr Bolton but commonly occurred where implied authorisation was given to junior doctors in the same or similar circumstances to those experienced by Dr Bolton. The evidence also demonstrates that many registrars and consultants
supervising the work of Dr Bolton knew that Dr Bolton was commonly performing unrostered overtime work,” Bromberg said. “Further still, there were policies and practices adopted by Peninsula Health which demonstrate the reluctance of Peninsula Health to pay for unrostered overtime performed by junior doctors.” Dr Bolton said the outcome is “a sign of hope for thousands of junior doctors across the state, who simply want to be paid their minimum enti-
tlements for the work they perform.” “I look forward to the day when, like our counterparts in NSW and the ACT, junior doctors don’t have to fight in court to be paid for the hours we worked,” she said. Peninsula Health chief medical officer, Associate Professor Shyaman Menon, said the hospital has “implemented a number of changes since proceedings against Peninsula Health and 11 other health services were commenced in 2021.” Continued page 10