Townsville Hospital’s chief faces bully claim
TOWNSVILLE Hospital chief executive Kieran Keyes has been accused of bullying and is facing legal action from the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland.
NPAQ executive director Graeme Haycroft alleges nurse unit manager Kirsten McAllister was bullied by Mr Keyes in the past 12 months. An affidavit was lodged with the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.
Mr Keyes denied the allegations made against him and said he would respect the independence of the organisation.
“I am looking forward to the opportunity to responding to the claims that have been made, and to defending myself very strongly against them,” he said.
Mr Keyes said it would not be appropriate to comment further.
Mr Haycroft called on Mr Keyes to step down from his role and said it was not appropriate to continue with these allegations before the commission.
“There’s a problem of bullying right across hospitals in Queensland Health and our position is we will not stand by and watch our members be bullied, we will fight back,” he said.
“There’s a management style problem with bullying staff in a controlling environment and you’re not going to get the trust and support of your employees if you’re a bully.
“It’s going to take some skill to fix the management issues.”
Mr Haycroft said nurses had made complaints about not receiving adequate protection from the hospital.
He referenced an incident involving a man smuggling syringes and drugs into the hospital for a patient.
“We will be going all the way with this; we are seeking an order against Mr Keyes and damages for our member,” Mr Haycroft said.
“The only way is to stand up and whack them back.”
Mr Keyes said the hospital provided adequate protection for staff and that the community needed to do their bit by respecting health care workers.
“The most important thing to the hospital and health service is the safety and security of our staff,” he said
“We have a number of measures available to ensure the safety of our staff. We have a 24- hour sevenday- a- week security officer presence. This year we’ve actually increased the presence of our security officers by six people. Bullying and harassment … is not, was not and never will be acceptable.”