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Ambulance Victoria chiefs say abusers, bullies will be weeded out

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Perpetrators of sexual harassment and discrimination within Ambulance Victoria have been put on notice, with the organisation's chiefs warning that they "should be anxious" and will be found.

As the ambulance service reels from allegations this week of widespread gender-based bullying and a boys' club culture that drives women out of the organisation, chief executive Tony Walker and chairman Ken Lay described the claims as a "tsunami".

Mr Lay said he had been "stunned on a number of levels" after dozens of female paramedics this week alleged systemic abuse in the ambulance service including women being sexually harassed while treating dying patients, told not to have children and warned they're no use in intensive care units once they have "used their uterus".

Former police chief Ken Lay has vowed to weed out sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination from the service.

Former police chief Ken Lay has vowed to weed out sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination from the service.Credit:Penny Stephens

Speaking for the first time since a paramedic wrote to him on Monday outlining "active discrimination" and "horrible instances of sexual misconduct", Mr Lay admitted the ambulance service's leadership was dominated by men and had not had the will to fix "poisonous and debilitating" behaviour.

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Mr Lay, Victoria's former police chief, said he was sickened by what he had been told and had been wondering how he did not see the issues.

"You start to question what you have missed; how have I put the organisation in this position, what could I have done better? All that stuff.

"You try and think about what you've done over the last four years in the organisation ... what's been done already to make it better, the surveys you see every other month, you think about the data you see a dozen times a year and then start asking yourself, 'OK, how didn't this pop up?'," he said.

On Tuesday, paramedic Rasa Piggott's letter and testimonies by anonymous paramedics prompted Mr Lay and Mr Walker to ask Victoria's Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commissioner, Kristen Hilton, to start an independent review immediately.

Among Ms Piggott's allegations were that mothers have been required to wean infants after a few months due to a lack of management support for breastfeeding. Another woman said she developed mastitis after being denied time to express and a place to store milk during long shifts.

Many paramedics told The Sunday Age they did not feel safe making complaints about maltreatment to the organisation's professional conduct unit, established in 2018, because they had seen retribution towards people who had done so. Some said they were also fearful of speaking to the independent inquiry, especially if they had signed an Ambulance Victoria confidentiality deed.

It looks like for this great lump of our people ... pressure has built and built and built, it is like a boil has been lanced.

Ken Lay, chairman of Ambulance Victoria

Mr Walker said he had been distressed by what he had learned, and staff had his personal guarantee there would be no action or repercussions against any employee who spoke to the independent review. This guarantee extended to those who had left the service.

He admitted staff had told him this week they had been "subject to harassment in [their] career and learned to live with it".

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"I'm genuinely serious about this; I want to understand what the issues are and I'm not about to put any barriers around that," Mr Walker said.

However, he refused to provide a copy of a 2015 cultural review widely referred to by paramedics as containing damning findings on harassment and discrimination. Senior Ambulance Victoria figures have kept the review under wraps since its completion.

Paramedics had already been terminated after "some complex, nasty cases of sexual harassment", Mr Walker said, and perpetrators should "feel a bit anxious" they would be outed. He described the allegations as a "watershed moment" for the organisation that employs nearly 7000 people, including more than 4000 operational paramedics.

Mr Lay said that since Tuesday, he had wondered "what the hell has happened here; to me it looks like for this great lump of our people, a big portion of our people, pressure has built and built and built, it is like a boil has been lanced".

"It has empowered a whole lot of people in our organisation to say: 'You know what, enough's enough'."

Behaviours reported were similar to some evident in Victoria Police prior to a 2014-15 inquiry into sexual harassment, discrimination and predatory behaviour in the force, also run by Ms Hilton. "It feels like Victoria Police to me ... I see behaviours that sicken me. I see behaviours that result in really damaged people," Mr Lay said.

Ambulance Victoria had not had "the structure, the processes or systems or the will" to fix an operational leadership system dominated by men. "As a result, we've got this strange-looking organisation ... [including] a lot of behaviours typical in male-dominated hierarchical organisations," he said.

There were "blokes out there that have got those deeply entrenched ideas about gender" and "it's poisonous and debilitating and we lose people as a result of it". Mr Lay said "entrenched lousy behaviours are difficult" to change. "It's often just hard grind to hard grind and that's what it's feeling like at the moment."

Mr Walker said although an organisation-wide cultural review in 2015 had exposed issues such as harassment and bullying he felt good progress had been made towards addressing it and before this week "I had no visibility of the quantum of this; that this is not something people felt safe talking to us about, that worries me significantly."

People who have experienced discrimination or sexual harassment can contact the commission's Inquiry Line on 1300 292 153 for more information about their rights and how they can make a complaint.

If you or anyone you know needs support call Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.

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Wendy Tuohy

Wendy Tuohy is a Sunday Age senior writer.

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