Record Class Action Settlement Gives Hope To 50,000 Australian Junior Doctors

A landmark $229.8 million class action settlement in NSW - the largest ever for underpayment in Australian legal history - has ignited hope for thousands more junior doctors in Australia who have been working excessive hours without fair compensation.

Lawyer Hayden Stephens, who spearheaded the NSW class action, is also representing junior doctors in class actions currently underway in Victoria (9 actions against 14 health services) and in the ACT. He has now launched a similar investigation in Western Australia and is urging junior doctors everywhere to share their experiences of underpayment.

These class action proceedings and investigations cover more than 50,000 junior doctors across Australia, including junior doctors in NSW.

“Our investigations across the country have revealed a widespread practice of junior doctors working excessive hours, with many of those hours not recognised or paid by their hospital”, Mr Stephens said.

"Junior doctors have told me that their experiences are virtually identical to those in NSW, which has just resulted in a record underpayment settlement. They are working the same excessive hours and facing the same lack of recognition and compensation."

"The junior doctors we have spoken to are not asking for extravagant sums of money," Mr Stephens emphasised. "They simply want to be paid fairly for the hours they actually work."

Underpayment issue has been a persistent problem for junior doctors across Australia, who often work long, unpredictable shifts. This has led to widespread reports of fatigue, burnout, and concerns about impacts on patient care.

A recent survey by the Australian Salaries Medical Officers Federation (ASMOF) of Victoria found the following concerning results:

• 87% of junior doctors have worked unpaid overtime in the past 12 months
• 93% of junior doctors have experienced burnout in the past 12 months
• 94% of junior doctors fear making a clinical error due to burnout and fatigue
• 98% of junior doctors agreed that burnout and fatigue are a major reason for junior doctors leaving the profession in Victoria.

In August last year, in the first Victorian junior doctors’ action to run to trial, His Honour Justice Bromberg of the Federal Court of Australia found in favour of junior doctor Dr Gaby Bolton in her class action against Peninsula health.

Background

Why are junior doctors in Australia speaking up?

These class actions highlight the troubling culture across the country of refusing to pay frontline, junior medical staff for unrostered and unpaid overtime.

Excessive hours and unpaid overtime are a systematic problem in hospitals. For many years, it has formed part of the custom and practice of nearly every medical and surgical department where junior doctors work.

Patient safety and doctors’ wellbeing are key priorities for doctor representative bodies across Australia. Over the past several years, Australian Medical Association (AMA) surveys have revealed that more than 60 per cent of junior doctors have consistently reported that they have made a clinical error due to long hours and fatigue.

Key points:

• Junior doctors are feeling the pressure of a healthcare system with a broken culture. • Health services need to recognise the problems with their reliance on unpaid overtime from junior doctors and make good on their past breaches of the Awards, and Enterprise Agreements. • The effect of underpaid and overworked doctors is multifactorial. These class actions are a result of a system already under strain, which continues to experience high rates of employee attrition, due to failure to recognise the labour junior doctors contribute to a broken system.

• Doctor and patient safety are of the utmost concern. All employees deserve a safe working environment, and the current state of the health system creates an environment that poses a risk to both doctors and their patients.

• Already in WA, Hayden has spoken to some senior doctors leading the charge for better treatment of junior doctors. A purpose of the class action will be to try accelerating these efforts.

About Hayden Stephens:

Hayden is principal of his own firm, Hayden Stephens and Associates.

He has been working on behalf of junior doctors in wage theft cases for the past 4 years.

In August last year, in the first Victorian junior doctors’ action to run to trial, His Honour Justice Bromberg of the Federal Court found in favour of junior doctor Dr Gaby Bolton in her class action against Peninsula health. Peninsula Health’s withdrew their appeal on appeal in late February.

Hayden lived and worked in WA for 6 years form 1999 – 2005.

Hayden has had a long history acting for the disadvantaged and person suffering injury. In his career he has specialised in asbestos litigation in WA acting for disease sufferers, sexual abuse claims, and employment law. He ran the first group action against the Catholic Church and Christian Brothers in WA for sexual and physical abuse on behalf of 250 men abused as children at four WA Christian Brothers institutions in the 1970’s and 80’s.

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