A DISPUTE over a memo has cost Queensland taxpayers more than $120,000 in legal fees, and patients the services of a veteran therapist.

Senior speech pathologist Quaneta Greenwood,  was suspended, with pay, 13 months ago after she wrote a memo exposing a staffing problem that threatened federal funding for a state nursing home.

Fraser Coast health district manager Kerry Winsor said the memo portrayed Queensland Health in a bad light, and she banned Ms Greenwood from seeing patients, gagged her from speaking to the media and accused her of misconduct.

As a result, taxpayers are stuck with a growing legal tab and are paying Ms Greenwood not to treat patients. Records show the bill for Queensland Health's lawyers, Minter Ellison, totalled $120,000 by September.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson recently denied health workers were still being bullied by health bureaucrats.

Yet Supreme Court documents filed by lawyers for Ms Greenwood include bullying and harassment among the claims.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said: "Since this is a matter between the employee and the department, it is inappropriate to comment while the process is ongoing."

The case hinges on a single-page memo, dated April 17, 2007, written by Ms Greenwood and a co-worker to five colleagues about speech pathology services to Yaralla Place nursing home.

The memo said the district did not have enough staff to meet extra speech-therapy services requested by federal inspectors who found the home deficient.

"To attend to these (referrals) we would be spending much of the day, every day at Yaralla Place, which is simply not possible," Ms Greenwood wrote. "Our department is not resourced to provide such services."

In a memo a month later, Ms Winsor accused Ms Greenwood of suspending nursing-home services without authorisation and demanded she turn in her work keys and stop treating patients.

Ms Greenwood, who had spent 23 years treating cancer and stoke victims with speech and swallowing problems, was devastated by the accusations.

In a court affidavit, she said she exposed the problems to help the health system and the public.

"It is wrongly asserted I withdrew services. In fact I worked over the Easter holidays to provide patient services to those I had objectively assessed as needing a rapid response. I was simply doing my part to try and see to it that accreditation would go ahead.

"The Aged Care Accreditation team were threatening sanctions if the dietetics and speech-therapy-patient backlog was not dealt with."

Barrister Stephen Keim, SC, is representing Ms Greenwood, who is seeking to have Ms Winsor stopped from taking further disciplinary action.

Mr Keim argued that the bureaucrat could not be impartial in determining misconduct because she had shown bias against Ms Greenwood.

But Justice John Byrne dismissed the application, which is being appealed  at a further cost to taxpayers.

Source: The Courier Mail - Tuck Thompson