This inSight+ article, authored by Clinical Professor Leanne Rowe AM discusses how under the recently amended Sex Discrimination Act, the medical profession risks attracting the scrutiny of the Australian Human Rights Commission unless sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, and victimisation of complainants or witnesses are eliminated in its workplaces and training programs.
Doctors behaving badly ‘on notice’ [inSight+ article Extract]
n 2020, the Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report found that Australia lags behind other countries in responding to sexual harassment, revealing 39% of women and 26% of men experienced sexual harassment in Australian workplaces in the previous five years. The report concluded sexual harassment is not only a women’s issue: “it is a societal issue, which every Australian, and every Australian workplace, can contribute to addressing”.
In December 2023 following legislative amendments to Sex Discrimination Act 1985 (Cth), the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) was formally granted new powers to investigate and enforce an employer’s “positive duty” to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate certain types of unlawful conduct. All workplaces, including hospitals, medical practices, and other health services, must now eliminate unlawful behaviours, such as direct or indirect sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, and victimisation of complainants or witnesses.
Previously, the onus was on victims to file formal complaints about unlawful behaviours, but significant barriers deterred people from speaking up. Under the positive duty, senior leaders in health care, including board members, chief executive officers, medical directors, heads of departments, practice owners and other health care employers should heed the serious repercussions for bystander silence and lack of preventive action, regardless of whether a complaint is made.
It is also unlawful to subject a person to a workplace environment that is hostile on the ground of sex (here and here). This change to the law recognises the cumulative psychological harm associated with repetitive negative behaviour, such as offensive, intimidating or humiliating comments.
As employers frequently turn a blind eye to sex discrimination and sexual harassment, the new powers allow the AHRC to conduct investigations into suspected hostile work environments that condone misogynistic or misandrist attitudes and behaviours. Incidents commonly ignored by employers include failing to take notice of unwelcome touching, suggestive jokes, indirect or direct exclusion, unjustified criticism of people on the basis of sex, patronising or insulting remarks, intrusive questions about private life or physical appearance, and derogatory comments about sexuality, pregnancy, breastfeeding or menopause.
Continue Reading the Full Article on the inSight+ website. >>
by Clinical Professor Leanne Rowe AM
19 January 2024
(Credits: Article- inSight+ / Stock-Yuri A/ Shutterstock)
Clinical Professor Leanne Rowe AM is a rural GP and co-author of the 2nd edition of Every Doctor: healthier doctors = healthier patients. Her Doctor of Medicine thesis is on the topic of GP mental health training, and she was a past Chairman of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and Deputy Chancellor of Monash University.
