10 July 2020
The family of a nurse who was abducted and murdered while working in a remote Indigenous community has asked the Deputy Coroner to refer her death to SafeWork SA for possible prosecution, reports The Advertiser.
Gayle Woodford was lured from the property she shared with her husband Keith in the small Outback community of Fregon, in March, 2016, by convicted sex offender Dudley Davey. Davey had claimed that his grandmother needed medical assistance.
The body of the 56-year-old mother was found two days later on the outskirts of Fregon, 200km south of the Northern Territory-South Australian border.
Ms Woodford had been working as a nurse for the Nganampa Health Council and was on-call the night she was murdered. Davey was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, with a non-parole period of 32 years. The shocking case prompted safety reform laws for nurses working in remote communities.
During closing submissions of the inquest into the circumstances surrounding Ms Woodford's death, Simon Blewett, for the Woodford family, asked Deputy Coroner Anthony Schapel to refer his findings to SafeWork SA, The Advertiser reports.
Despite conducting an initial investigation into the death, Mrs Woodford's family maintained SafeWork had only paid "lip service" to the case.
While Mr Schapel cannot make a direct recommendation that SafeWork - which enforces workplace safety - prosecute the Nganampa Health Council, by making the recommendation the matter can once again be investigated, The Advertiser says.
Following the tragic murder of Ms Woodford, the ANMF (SA Branch) has continuously worked with Gayle’s family to ensure there is adequate legislation and regulations to protect remote areas nurses. We are committed to ensuring no-one ever has endure the same suffering again in the future.
While months of campaigning and media and political advocacy by Gayle’s family and the ANMF (SA Branch) saw Gayle’s Law passed through State Parliament in December 2017, it would be almost another two years before the law became fully operational.
“Gayle’s Law makes it abundantly clear: no health care professional working in remote areas should be forced to attend after-hours emergency callouts alone,” ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj. Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said in June 2019.
“Yet the regulations issued by the State Government provide a loophole that allows nurses to attend after-hours emergency callouts alone if they consider it safe.
“There will be circumstances that appear safe or where time does not permit an appropriate and proper risk assessment to be undertaken. These are some of the same factors that contributed to Gayle’s untimely death,” she said.
Intent on ensuring its remote area members were not left exposed by the gap, the ANMF (SA Branch) continued to lobby for regulations that kept health service managers accountable for the safety of their staff, rather than placing the onus on the health care practitioner.
The combined strength of 21,000 nurses, midwives and personal care workers and one very determined family resulted in the regulations being disallowed by Parliament in September 2019 and new regulations - removing the loophole - implemented in November 2019.
“We are forever grateful to the ANMF for finding the flaw in the regulations, because Gayle’s Law is now the best version it can be,” Keith said shortly afterwards. “We now have a new level of safety here in South Australia. We are very proud. Gayle would be so proud.”
“Our next move is to push for Gayle’s Law to go national, because we won’t stop until every nurse in Australia is protected from having to attend after-hours call-outs alone.’’
Ms Dabars agreed, reaffirming the ANMF’s long-held commitment to supporting the campaign for Gayle’s Law to apply Australia-wide.
“Whilst it is very positive that we now have these strengthened safety laws in South Australia, nurses and midwives across the country need and deserve the same type of solution at a federal level,” she said.