A consultant urologist at University Hospital Galway has alleged that a significant minority of junior hospital staff are being subjected to low level racist bullying in some of Ireland’s hospitals.
Non-EU doctors’ representative Dr Syed Jaffrey was commenting after it was revealed that 64 bullying claims were made against medical personnel in the health service last year. East Galway Fine Gael TD Ulick Burke had sought the figures from the HSE.
Dr Jaffrey said this week that the numbers quoted were the “tip of the iceberg”.
“There is much more than that happening but it isn’t recorded,” the locally based hospital consultant is reported as saying.
“There are a number of reasons why people do not come forward about
this bullying, they can be too afraid of the consequences of
complaining about a senior doctor or consultant and how it might
affect their own career.
“At the moment consultants can almost decide whether a junior doctor is given a position and that can mean a person who is bullied can be afraid to come forward,” he claimed.
He said that groups such as the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI ) are “looking to take that power away from consultants but it is there and we need to get it out of the culture.”
He allged there were instances where the health service administration bullies senior consultants, “senior consultants bully junior consultants who bully junior doctors and some of that involves racism.”
