A CONFIDENTIAL report has found a culture of harassment was allowed to "fester" at Cairns Base Hospital to the point that a junior surgeon was forced to take stress leave.

The investigation by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons into complaints of incompetence against Dr Heng-Chin Chiam cleared the junior consultant surgeon but delivered a damning assessment of some hospital procedures.

The report said the harassment of Dr Chiam was "adversely influencing his ability to mature as a clinician" and the failure of managers to take decisive action allowed the matter to fester.

It also warned of the risk of patient care being jeopardised by the long-term destabilising effect of unresolved issues between the departments of surgery and anaesthesia.

Three weeks after the release of the report, leaked exclusively to The Weekend Post yesterday,… no action has been taken by Queensland Health.

Dr Chiam has been on stress leave since June after the hospital’s Department of Anaesthesia made complaints against him and refused to provide anaesthetists to work with him on elective surgery jobs.

Those complaints, which centred on his handling of two surgical cases, were found by the college to have no substance.

The reviewers said Dr Chiam’s treatment in each case was appropriate and "could not be faulted".

"In summary, Dr Chiam is a cautious but safe surgeon," they wrote.

The hospital’s acting chief executive officer Mary Montgomery told The Weekend Post the public could "be assured that all appropriate action arising from the report will be taken".

The independent audit, undertaken at the request of Queensland Health, was "being reviewed and considered in the context of overall surgical and anaesthetic services" within the district, Ms Montgomery said.

The office of Health Minister Stephen Robertson declined to comment about an internal staff matter.

Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle said Mr Robertson should have intervened months ago to resolve the stalemate between Cairns surgeons and anaesthetists.

"Enough time has been lost and sick Far North Queenslanders have suffered with the shortage of doctors caused by extended periods of stress leave," Mr McArdle said.

The report found Dr Chiam needed adequate clinic and operating time to develop an elective practice and build up his confidence, after being prevented from doing a backlog of elective surgery in the Surgery Connect program and outreach surgery at Innisfail.

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