Bullying and harassment still a feature of workplace culture for female doctors, conference told

Almost 60 per cent of female doctors have experienced bullying in the workplace while more than half have been the victims of gender-based harassment and 45 per cent say they were given fewer or more mundane tasks because of their gender in the course of their jobs, an Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) conference in Dublin has heard.

The meeting was told that despite women making up almost half (47 per cent) of the roughly 18,500 doctors professionally active, many continue to face major challenges in the course of the work and feel discriminated against, something that is damaging the system’s ability to deliver on the Government’s various healthcare targets.

Those attending the IMO event, Gender Equality in Irish Medicine, heard the results of a survey of 1,615 working doctors, some 70 per cent of whom were female.

The findings suggest that those working in the profession find it difficult to strike a satisfactory work life balance with a lack of support around childcare or flexibility in the workplace among the key areas of concern.

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Among women who had taken leave from their jobs, almost half (48.7 per cent) felt pressured to return early with many feeling that their employer had not provided adequate cover in their absence. Just over a quarter of the female respondents (27.9 per cent) said they had been excluded from particular tasks on the basis of their gender and a similar proportion, (26.7 per cent) reported having been told they should not pursue chosen career paths for the same reason.

Among those who reported being the victim of bullying, 43.7 per cent said another doctor had been the guilty party while among those who had been harassed on the basis of their gender 26.3 per cent said a patient had been responsible.

In all instances, men also reported having had negative experiences but with a smaller percentage affected.

Speaking at the event, Dr Suzanne Crowe, President of the Medical Council, said that as a student in the summer of 1990 she was one of many to believe that Ireland would become a major force in international football and women would conquer the medical profession. “Neither came to pass”.

She said while women do indeed form a majority of those working in the area, “we have come to see that 50-50 is not enough and that a wide range of measures and shifts in attitude are required to bring about the change required to make medicine a more equal environment”.

She said that it was “no surprise that a woman doctor will choose collecting their child at 6pm and put them to bed instead of attending a research meeting”.

“But increasingly,” she added, “our male counterparts want to be part of their family life as well and it’s somewhat ironic that more change might come with this as a driver.”

In the survey, 51 per cent of women and 39 per cent of men said they had experienced difficulties securing childcare during the hours they were obliged to work and 78 per cent of doctors with dependent children said the HSE should provide on-site childcare.

Addressing the conference, IMO chief executive Susan Clyne said the HSE was “one of the largest, if not the largest employer in the State; it has a predominantly female workforce yet it has no childcare on-site.

“Now that is an indictment of the State. We hear messages from the political system and the HSE of their desire to deliver a system that facilitates everyone’s absolute entitlement to be seen 24 hours a day, yet they do absolutely nothing to provide the supports to their workforce that could potentially deliver that.”