‘Treated like slaves’: Junior doctors’ class action against St Vincent’s Hospital

Junior doctors are suing St Vincent’s Hospital for millions in unpaid overtime, alleging the hospital enforces a shadow policy that demands they work excessive hours off the books, or risk career sabotage.

As many as 2500 doctors are expected to join the class action launched this week, which has the hallmarks of another junior doctor class action against NSW Health that led to the biggest underpayment settlement in Australian history.

“Relying on unpaid overtime carried out by doctors is now sadly part of the business model of how hospitals operate,” said Hayden Stephens, director of the law firm representing the junior doctors in both class actions.

Junior clinicians, senior specialists and doctors’ unions have repeatedly warned that unpaid overtime is baked into Australia’s hospital system as a shoddy fix for understaffing.

Ultimately, the fatigue caused by doctors working excessive hours was an “unacceptable risk to patient safety”, Stephens said.

More than 350 junior doctors have registered for the class action, which covers those who worked at St Vincent’s from January 2020.

They described being required to start early and stay back after their rostered shifts for ward rounds and handovers, to chase blood results, update patients and families, speak to other hospitals, complete discharge summaries and respond to emergencies.

Several reported working to the point of exhaustion, their management actively discouraging them from claiming overtime, and fearing that doing so would jeopardise their future in highly competitive specialties.

During her interview with Stephens’ firm, one female doctor described being called in almost every night and working 20 hours of unpaid overtime a week.

Another junior doctor alleged that human resources had told them there was an “unsaid expectation and unwritten rule to perform unrostered overtime without remuneration”.

A third said she was instructed: “Don’t try and claim [sic]. If you try to claim for overtime, you are not working hard enough, and you will not be paid.”

“[I]nterns and residents specifically do not claim for their overtime [fearing] the department view them as a burden and an inefficient doctor,” a registrar said.

Stephens said the doctors’ case was simple. “This is not a call for increased pay, just that doctors be paid for the work they do,” he said.

A spokesperson said St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney “treats the safety and wellbeing of our people, including our junior medical officers, with the utmost seriousness”.

Professor Deborah Yates, a senior respiratory specialist who resigned from St Vincent’s in 2025, said junior doctors’ fears that claiming overtime could jeopardise their careers were justified.

“Their overtime claim is fed back to the head of department, and the head of department … and the supervisors are the ones who allow the person to progress in their training,” Yates said.

“If you upset your supervisor, you basically can be out of it all, [so] there’s an advantage to not being seen to be any trouble.

“They are doing very long, onerous work, and people become so stressed that they develop a range of other issues. Families break up … and the suicide rate is really high.”

In 2024, NSW Health agreed to pay $299.8 million in unpaid overtime to more than 20,000 junior doctors in NSW public hospitals to resolve a class action lodged by Hayden Stephens and Associates and Maurice Blackburn.

Stephens said the state award covering these doctors has terms and conditions nearly identical to those of the federal enterprise agreement covering St Vincent’s doctors.

Dr Meg Landgraf, the class action’s lead applicant, said that for years St Vincent’s management has not recognised doctors’ excessive hours.

“The NSW doctors’ settlement ensures that every hour a doctor works counts,” Landgraf said.

“All we ask is that St Vincent’s now do the same.”

Meanwhile, in Victoria, a class action on behalf of 12,000 Victorian junior doctors settled for $175 million in October, and in the ACT, 2200 junior doctors received a $31.5 million settlement in 2024.

“We need to stop people being treated like slaves, basically, and move to a situation where they recognise their contribution,” Yates said. “If we lose them, we’re really in trouble.”

Stephens said his firm wrote to St Vincent’s Sydney in July. Informal discussions took place in August and September, but stopped, prompting Stephens to write to St Vincent’s lawyers, urging them to engage. Stephens said he received no response and has had zero communication since September.

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