The top boss of Canberra's public hospitals has defended significant progress made at the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children in light of a report highlighting significant safety risks for patients.
A review of training accreditation in the hospital's obstetrics and gynaecology department found serious workplace cultural issues, staffing shortages, poor behaviour and unacceptable overtime hours.
The hospital failed to meet a series of training accreditation standards but despite this it has been granted provisional accreditation by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists so that trainees can remain.
The hospital has been under provisional accreditation since mid-last year when the issues were first highlighted by the college.
Canberra Health Services chief executive Dave Peffer said progress had been made but he acknowledged there were issues. He emphasised reviewers did not find grounds to withdraw accreditation.
"We understand there are areas that we need to focus on and improve and we've got a leadership team in place now that's actively working to turn that around and working very hard with our training doctors to make sure that the change we're introducing is meaningful," he said.
The review said consultants had not complied with on-call requirements and trainees were being asked to do procedures they were not credentialed in.
There was also an excessive amount of overtime, with staff in some cases working more than 110 hours a fortnight.
Cultural issues remained significant in the department, with the review highlighting short staffing as a contributing factor alongside repeated poor behaviour.
"Continued instances of poor behaviour are unacceptable and must be addressed. This is a major contributor to culture within the department and presents potential risks to and impact on patient safety," the report said.
Mr Peffer also said these issues were being experienced throughout the country.
"There's no doubt certain specialties across the country are problematic and they're not just problematic in Canberra. They're problematic in Sydney and Melbourne."
Opposition health spokeswoman Leanne Castley blasted the government over the review's findings.
"Imagine working in this environment if it was any other business the government would be down on them but these are government employees that need help," she said.
"It's clearly not great because patient safety is at risk and junior doctors are performing treatments that they're not credentialed for and that's a very, very serious issue."
Ms Castley also took aim at Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, saying she needed to do more to fix the issues. She said the decline was due to under-funding into the health system.
"Does the minister need to pop in at 11pm tonight and see what's going on ... go into the hospital, look at what's wrong and fix it," she said.
"It's on the minister's shoulders, she is responsible."
Mr Peffer said the hospital had improvements in the midwifery workforce and there were fewer shortages in this area.
"What we have seen here at the Centenary Hospital is a marked turnaround in our midwifery workforce and that's an area where we have carried significant shortages for some time but over the last four to five months we have turned that around," he said.
