Australian junior doctors launch legal action against managers over working conditions

Registrars at an Australian hospital have launched legal action against its management amid claims that they are being worked beyond exhaustion while being denied their mandatory clinical training.

The alleged plight of the doctors at Melbourne’s Sunshine Hospital has become the latest instalment in a growing list of complaints among doctors in training over excessive workload pressures, exploitation, harassment, and bullying across the country’s public hospital system.1

The Australian Medical Association in Victoria says that, under the enterprise agreement setting minimum terms and conditions with the hospital, registrars are contracted to work 43 hours a week, but the total includes five hours that must be used for clinical training time.

AMA Victoria is now representing the registrars by taking Western Health, which runs Sunshine Hospital, to the Fair Work Commission. It claims that the hospital …