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For two years, myself and others here tried to raise concerns about what was going on and terrible things were happening to patients and patients were dying....I tried very hard to get investigations done and that type of thing, but he was basically protected by the executive."
This is the voice of Toni Hoffman, who was the head nurse at Bundaberg Base Hospital's intensive care unit when American Surgeon, Jayant Patel was appointed Director of Surgery.
Within six weeks of his appointment, Ms Hoffman began raising concerns with her superiors about Mr Patel, after a number of patients developed serious complications following his treatment.
Ms Hoffman says she was dismissed and ridiculed by hospital seniors at every step.
"The barriers were there were manifold, there were so many different barriers, but a lot of them were just complete disregard for me as a nurse and blaming me for having a personality conflict. It was put down as a personality conflict between Patel and me. It was just disregarded as that, and I was discredited."
When it became clear Ms Hoffman was not going to be taken seriously, she took her concerns to local MP Rob Messenger.
Mr Patel was eventually convicted of three counts of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in jail- but a successful high court appeal led to a plea deal, where Patel pleaded guilty to fraud, and the remaining charges were dropped. He returned to the United States, and was barred from practising medicine in Australia.
Ms Hoffman's disclosure played an important role in prompting a major Queensland Public Hospitals inquiry, which exposed major deficiencies in the management of complaints and incidents, and a culture of concealment in the state's hospitals.
She now volunteers with Whistleblowers Australia, providing advice to others working in the health sector who want to speak up against wrong doing.
"By the time they call me, they are desperate. I can recognize their desperation in their voice like I was, and not knowing what to do, not knowing what the right thing to do. Most people are afraid of losing their jobs. A lot of people have been trying to do something for years, so they've been punished by their workplace already.”
A new report from the Human Rights Law Centre finds women are still paying a heavy price today for speaking up against wrongdoing.
The report, titled “Women Speaking Up: Gender Dynamics in Australia’s Whistleblowing Landscape” gathered data from 65 people who received support from Human Rights Law Centre as whistleblowers between August 2023 and June 2024.
While high profile whistleblowers in Australia have most often been men, Acting Senior Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre Anneliese Cooper says the report shines a light on the essential role female whistleblowers play.
"What this report tells us about what areas women are mostly reporting wrongdoing is that women are reporting wrongdoing in healthcare, education and government sectors. So this means that without women whistleblowers, wrongdoing in places like our hospitals, our detention centres and other critical public services will stay hidden, and that means that institutions cannot be held to account.”
The report finds 7 out of 10 of the whistleblowers coming to the centre for advice reported suffering reprisal from their employers when they made their concerns clear.
And while men and women were found to suffer retaliation for speaking up at the same rate, the form this took differed.
While almost half of men reported having their employment terminated, almost a third of women said they faced harassment and bullying.
It also found 100 per cent of those reporting wrongdoing in the healthcare sector suffered reprisal.
"And every single one of those whistleblowers suffered retaliation for speaking up. And that's really concerning because everyone deserves a right to safe healthcare. And without women speaking up, abuse, neglect, human rights violations can continue in the dark."
Chair of Transparency International Australia AP Brown says it's clear Australia's current whistleblower protection laws aren't working.
"What we know about whistleblowing is that it's the single most important way that wrongdoing comes to light in the public sector or the private sector. But currently our laws are very fragmented, especially at a federal level. And all the evidence is suggesting that they're effectively not working, not reaching the people that they need and not being properly enforced in either the public sector or the private sector."
He says, as the report shows, without adequate whistleblower protections, organisations are not being held to account.
"It's far too easy for the leadership of any particular agency or company to make the mistake of either turning on the person who's reporting wrongdoing or just failing to properly support them in the face of what is a stressful and career changing experience. We know from things like the robodebt scandal, that even big departments that have a tradition of service to the community can develop a culture and a leadership culture that completely fails to respect the voices of those who are speaking up and in fact ends up damaging those person's careers as well."
In 2019, the Corporations Act was expanded to provide greater protections for whistleblowers working in the private sector, including a requirement that companies have a whistleblower policy in place.
Darren Murphy is CEO of Core Integrity, which works to create safe whistleblowing cultures within organisations.
He says while the 2019 changes were a step forward, more needs to be done to protect those brave enough to speak up.
"Five years down the track now of the new legislation, I'd still say there's a lot more to be done in terms of protecting them. They're all too often either not heard at all or ignored, but more often than not, they're probably impacted in the workplace. I mean, whether they're adversely and deliberately targeted in terms of demotions or being terminated from their employment, there's definitely also a massive psychological impact to them from speaking up in the workplace."
The Human Rights Law Centre's latest report makes a number of recommendations to better protect women who blow the whistle across sectors.
Ms Cooper says an independent Whistleblower Protection Authority, which recognises and incorporates women’s experiences of calling out wrongdoing, must be the first step.
"A Whistleblower Protection Authority would be landmark reform. It would ensure that whistleblowers are empowered, protected, and supported, and whistleblowers could go to the Whistleblower Protection Authority and get advice and assistance and support and protection to navigate really complex whistleblower laws to make sure that they don't experience retaliation and to make sure that they can enforce their legal rights."
It's a call for change Ms Hoffman has been making for years.
"And I think it would still help if we had an independent, and I mean a really independent, not just a token gesture independent body that people could take complaints to....I just wish that we could speak up without the threat of jail or losing our careers to keep our patients safe."
