Teacher's Pest: Top Health Official Sacked
the site already has other information posted on this organisation.
Great work whoever made this possible.
June 17, 2008
THE chief medical officer of HealthQuest, the medical screening body
for all public servants, has been sacked after telling the Education
Department a teacher it intended employing was being investigated by
police for defamatory website postings about him.
There is no evidence the teacher was being investigated by police.
An external investigation by the former NSW Police deputy police
commissioner David Madden found that Dr Peter Dodwell inappropriately
passed on information regarding the teacher - who had been found fit
for duty by HealthQuest in 2006 - to the Education Department in an
attempt to adversely influence its decision to employ her.
The teacher did not want to be named over concerns it would affect her employment prospects.
HealthQuest terminated Dr Dodwell's employment on March 26, according to documents seen by the Herald.
Mr Madden had found that two of the five allegations made by the teacher against Dr Dodwell were substantiated.
An independent review by the former magistrate John Heagney supported the Madden findings.
The Madden report found that Dr Dodwell "communicated inappropriately
with the officer who referred [the teacher] for assessment of her
fitness to begin employment … including stating that [the teacher] was:
linked with what Dr Dodwell considered to be defamatory postings on a
public website; and being investigated by police in relation to the
website postings".
The other substantiated allegation was that "despite finding her fit to
begin duties as a teacher, Dr Dodwell sought to influence her employer
with the intention of interfering inappropriately with her employment
prospects with DET [the Department of Education]".
The teacher's allegation that she had been victimised because she had complained about HealthQuest 10 years ago was rejected.
The teacher was medically retired after being declared unfit for duty
by HealthQuest in 1997 due to "cognitive dysfunction", a decision
overturned by the Medical Appeals Panel five months later.
Mr Madden said the teacher had no opportunity to defend herself against
Dr Dodwell's claims and he should be disciplined for breaching privacy
restrictions.
"The way in which he [Dr Dodwell] went about informing the Department
of Education was inappropriate and not reasonable behaviour of a public
official … As the officer has seemingly breached his responsibilities,
the matter should be treated as a disciplinary matter."
He said "Dr Dodwell's motivation appears to have been to have the
Department of Education review its decision about employing [the
teacher], but the evidence would suggest he did so largely on the basis
of the seemingly defamatory attacks on him on the various websites".
The chief executive of HealthQuest, Jill Hennessy, apologised to the
teacher in a letter dated April 4, 2008. "I sincerely regret any
distress or hardship that Dr Dodwell's actions may have caused you. I
hope that you will accept my apology," Ms Hennessy wrote.
She said Dr Dodwell denied the allegations and considered the Madden and Heagney reports as "seriously flawed".
Ms Hennessy said she had referred the matter to police and the NSW Medical Board.
The Health Care Complaints Commission assessed the complaint and last
month referred it to the NSW Medical Board, which is unable to confirm
what action, if any, it is taking.
Ms Hennessy told the Herald there had been no previous
complaints made against Dr Dodwell since he took up the position in
July 2005. She would not comment on the website postings.
- 254 reads
Top Health Official Sacked
What's the follow up on this - does anyone know that this really happened?
Did the person get a job after receiving the apology? or was it not worth the paper it was written on?
There's been a lot of stuff on the ambo's being bullied also - do they get sent to HealthQuest also.
Is HealthQuest legal and if not why are they are able to get away with it and why can't lawyers take HealthQuest to court.
How can anyone be forced to undergo a medical exam without their permission?
Dodwell claims the reports against him are "seriously flawed". Can those reports be accessed.
My understanding is yes happened
I know I sent correspondence and spoke to FoI people at the Dept of Ed. I also expressed annoyance that my IMC articles had been attributed to someone else on their HR file - the teacher blacklisted.
Apparently this broke the case a bit for her she reckons because it became clear the HR file was a fraud with all my stories on there, a real person, real articles, real IMC - not hers, but said to prove something about her. A concoction.
I made a submission to the NSW Ombudsman from memory about the possibility a party flunky was abusing their public servant role to run an archive on IMC attacks on the govt. If so an improper use of govt funds.
Mmm. Quite a curious case with echoes of Roy Medvedev's A Question of Madness - a Stalinist tactic to attack fair criticism by character assassination - more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Medvedev
Re: My understanding is yes happened
It all sounds very strange - however the misuse of public funds doesn't seem to warrant and is not important including FOI or even ICAC! Really all these places are set up to protect the govt in the first place. It makes no sense to report serious crime within the public sector and yet it all falls on deaf ears. A lot of this has to do with ensuring that no govt dept is every sued - therefore the reason why they have so many independent bodies created to cover up for the one department responsible.
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