My career had gone from strength to strength at this time remarkably given everything that was going on in my life but my work was my one constant and kept me fulfilled and I was doing well and my career sights set high. I had worked in Palliative Care and I was very committed to my profession and had strong ethical base and sense of right from wrong which not only because of my career path and Social Work role but also the way I conducted my life and the two were meshed.
My professional reputation and work ethic was very important to me and something that I felt very strongly about and my strong sense of integrity, however I learnt that not everyone including other social workers had the same values and beliefs. I became aware of a situation where one of the Palliative Care Specialist Doctors had prescribed ongoing and huge amounts of narcotics for pain relief for a patient who was supposedly palliative care however this diagnosis had never been investigated or confirmed from evidence basis. The patient was regularly reviewed under our team for a long period of time and essentially, she became addicted to narcotics and finally scans and tests revealed she was not palliative and therefore did not require the high doses of pain medication that she became addicted too. Everyone involved took no medical or ethical responsibility for the patient’s situation except for myself and therefore wanted to get rid of the patient that was the problem due to fear of legal actions and negative consequences to medical professionals and Hospital Health Service.
I was very clear in my role and what the expectations of my professional ethics and strongly advocated for this patient to be supported with the medical team to help and support the patient to get Rehabilitation and help with her addiction. I was quickly summoned to my Social Work Management directed to not have any contact with the patient and essentially labelled a troublemaker and told I was and my career was ultimately over now. They didn’t have the grounds or evidence to fire me but the bullying and harassment that surrounded my working life from then on was on reflection a far worse punishment. It would have been a better or easier outcome or road ahead of me if I hadn’t advocated for myself and fought to keep my employment because I hadn’t done anything wrong. There were long months and years that followed that this stigma never left me and the actions and politics of the Organisation and Management had led me down a spiralling path and opened behaviours and bullying and harassment that I could never have imagined and my reality of what was good in the world shattered.
I could have easily over the years succumbed to the thoughts and beliefs of Management and Executive and done what was I was required by their expectations and not in line with my ethics and values but I never gave into that temptation and yes it would have been easier for me and given me better career opportunities and money but it was never about the money or being liked or having an agenda of power and control. For me it was always about my strong sense of what was right and wrong, my values and beliefs, fighting for those who don’t have capacity to advocate for themselves and I absolutely needed to hold onto my integrity otherwise all that I had known that was what I held on would bring that tower crashing down.
Several years later I learnt that this dangerous behaviour continued and whilst my career and professional life had stagnated and I had been extradited to a low paying base level position and given no opportunities and had been labelled a troublemaker that followed me throughout my career I never gave in to the temptation to cross the line and held strongly onto my values and ethical code and outlasted them all. The people and management responsible had by then been removed from their role by Health Quality Commission, Management positions made redundant and the Social Work Management removed from his position due to substantiated investigation of bullying and harassment. I don’t know why I stayed so long, I guess it was the security but also the belief that I had never done anything wrong and justice and fighting for what I believed was right and the fight of my life and I never gave in because I hadn’t don’t anything wrong and walking away would have meant that I accepted defeat and I was never prepared to take on that belief because it was the only thing in my life I had that was keeping me alive and the only aspect of my life that meant more.
