I have been reeling after the explosive Four Corners reporting on the ABC last week detailing the nightmares hundreds of women and people assigned female at birth are living after having a Victorian doctor treat them for endometriosis.
Some have been left medically infertile from the doctor’s ‘treatment’, which allegedly involved multiple unnecessary and costly surgeries.
In the words of Health Minister Mark Butler MP, how was this doctor “able to continue to practice this on so many young women?”
This should raise important questions about protections for people to speak up on misconduct, and the costs they face in doing so.
Indeed, journalist Louise Milligan shared with Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan about the fear the whistleblowers involved in the story are feeling.
These whistleblowers are scared because Australia’s current whistleblowing laws don’t protect them.
And when people close to wrongdoing can’t speak up, wrongdoing continues, and in this case, lives are changed forever.
At the Whistleblower Project at the Human Rights Law Centre, Australia’s first legal service dedicated to supporting whistleblowers, we know this all too well.
We know from our Women Speaking Up: Gender Dynamics in Australia’s Whistleblowing Landscape report and data from other countries that healthcare, particularly, is an industry that has one of the worst ‘speak up’ cultures. Despite most hospitals having speak up policies and initiatives, they often do little to actually encourage and...
Kenneth Scott Miller, 48, is charged with a felony count of making a false report to law enforcement. He was released from the Escambia County Jail on a $500 bond. According to an Escambia County ...