THE NSW Ambulance service has been convicted and fined $187,500 for failing in its duty of care regarding policies and procedures for restricted drugs, following the suicide of Lake Macquarie paramedic Tony Jenkins.
A spokesperson for Mr Jenkins' family on Tuesday described the result as "important", but qualified "you cannot put a price on a life lost to suicide due to the failure of duty of care by an employer".
"Everyone deserves to return home from work, particularly from such a preventable cause of death as happened to Tony Jenkins," the spokesperson told the Herald.
Judge Wendy Strathdee discounted the original $250,000 fine because of NSW Ambulance's guilty plea to breaching section 19 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.
The section of the Act calls for employers to ensure the health and safety of workers "so far as reasonably practicable".
NSW Ambulance will also have to pay the prosecution's costs.
They pleaded guilty to an amended summons filed on February 10, which had changed since SafeWork first launched legal action in 2020.
Mr Jenkins, a paramedic with almost three decades of experience, took his own life in April 2018 after he was called into a meeting with two managers - and no independent support person - and questioned about allegations he had misused Fentanyl taken from ambulance stores.
An autopsy showed there were no traces of the synthetic opioid - a painkiller more potent than morphine - in the 54-year-old's body when he died.
In her judgement, Judge Strathdee said Mr Jenkins had admitted to using Fentanyl as a sleeping aid during the April 2018 meeting with his superiors, after several vials had been found tampered with at Belmont Ambulance Station.
It is a claim that Mr Jenkins' family has always strenuously denied.
She said Mr Jenkins had been identified in an audit completed the previous September as the second highest administrator of the drug in the ambulance service.
But she said local top brass did not take enough steps in response to the findings before the tampered vials were discovered six months after the audit was finished.
"I am satisfied that [Ambulance NSW] had in place policies and procedures with regard to witnessing, auditing and monitoring the use of Restricted Medications during the breach period, however, they needed some amending, which has been done," she said.
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; beyondblue 1300 224 636.
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