Female Plastic Surgeon Loses Whistleblower Case
A female plastic surgeon has lost her case in the district court after blowing the whistle on her male anesthetist colleague. The surgeon had repeatedly alerted her employer about the mistakes she believed her colleague was making when sedating the patients she was going to operate on.
However, instead of action being taken to address the concerns raised, the woman was later dismissed from work and then reassigned. The employer claims that this was a practical solution to a long-standing conflict between the two colleagues, while the woman sees it as a punishment for speaking up.
The case was taken to the district court with the help of the woman’s union and their law firm, LO-TCO Rättsskydd. Despite the new whistleblower act from 2021, the district court ruled in favor of the employer, citing a lack of evidence to prove a connection between the woman’s whistleblowing and the punishment she received.
The focus of the employer has been on the long-term conflict between the two colleagues, with the union arguing that the blame has been unfairly placed on the woman. They are seeking for more of the woman’s alarms to be classified as whistleblowing, as only a few have done so, which could make the time between the alarm and punishment shorter.
The case has now been appealed to the Labor Court, with the woman’s lawyer emphasizing the importance of clarifying the timing between the alarm and punishment. She believes that if the district court’s ruling stands, it could set a dangerous precedent for whistleblowers in the workplace.
The lawyer stated, “If the district court is right, employers can only wait a little and then take various reprisals, such as dismissal or reassignment. And then you cannot prove that it is due to the whistleblowing. That’s not how the law was intended. You should be able to feel safe when you whistle.”