NHS 'whistleblower' claims hospital bullied him

Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | September 9, 2009

[Schnucki]

An NHS whistleblower claims that he was subjected to a campaign of bullying and harassment after raising concerns about patient safety and care at a London hospital.

Ramon Niekrash, a consultant urologist, says he repeatedly raised concerns about problems at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in South London which he said were caused by cost-cutting.

These included a shortage of senior doctors, too many patients and the risk of hospital acquired infection, such as MRSA.

But at one point a senior doctor at the hospital allegedly said that she wished that Australian-trained Ramon Niekrash, was “in chains on a plane in Heathrow back to Australia”.

One case he raised was of a prostate cancer patient who was allegedly not told that he had the disease nor given treatment for six months after he was diagnosed.

Mr Niekrash, 50, was suspended from the hospital for 10 weeks in 2008, after being branded “difficult”.

That suspension damaged his reputation and his health, he told an employment tribunal in Croydon.

“As a result of my disclosures I was subjected bullying, harassment and ultimately I was excluded in a unprecedented punitive action by the concerted actions of the Trust management,” he said.

He told the tribunal that senior doctors were overrun, seeing up to 72 patients on a single day, when guidelines recommend that they should see no more than 52.

The unit had one of the highest patient to consultant ratio in the country, he said.

This left them proving care for patients, four in 10 of whom had cancer, that was “less than ideal”, he said.

Some patients had had up to seven appointments to see their specialist cancelled.

In letters to management Mr Niekrash also complained about the closure of a specialist urology ward in 2005, which meant

[Mr. Silverback]

bump

[DieHard the Hunter]

If true, dam’nable.

[lwd]

Coming soon to a hospital near you...