Following a four-year legal battle, the SA Employment Tribunal last year ruled that 62-year-old neonatal nurse Wendy Summerton had suffered a workplace psychiatric injury that “significantly contributed” to the worsening of her existing Crohn’s disease, requiring drastic bowel surgery.

The judgment – which condemned the “Kafkaesque” treatment Summerton endured by her employer – would have helped her apply for lump-sum compensation.

At the time, Summerton told InDaily she had received “justice” after being “chewed up and spat out” by Flinders Medical Centre during a misconduct complaint.

But SA Health is now appealing the tribunal decision – costing Summerton more time and money – arguing the trial judge made “errors” in his findings.

Summerton became so unwell during her ordeal with the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network that she lost 17 kilograms in six months and had to have ileostomy surgery to remove her damaged bowel and create a stoma bag.

“The stress was just unbelievable – it was too much to bear,” she told InDaily last December.

Summerton had worked as a neonatal nurse at Flinders Medical Centre for 16 years when she received a phone call from her manager in June 2017, advising she had been suspended from work, accused of misconduct.

She was not told what the allegations were, and later received a letter explaining only that she had been accused of providing unidentified patient records to an unidentified patient parent without consent or authority.

In his judgment, Employment Tribunal deputy president Stephen Lieschke explained the only thing Summerton could think of was that two weeks earlier she had provided a written “confirmation of attendance” document to the mother of a newborn baby who might be removed from her care by the State.

“The mother wanted a copy of the official record of her visits, as those visits had been recorded in a visitor’s log in accordance with her baby’s care plan,” Lieschke said.

“The record did not include any clinical information. The applicant then read the applicable FOI guidelines, which permitted the release of a bare ‘confirmation of attendance’ record by the responsible clinical staff. She also consulted a colleague, who agreed with providing a copy.

“After deleting any names of staff from the record, she provided a copy to the mother, together with a copy of the FOI guidelines.”

Lieschke said “this was alleged to be serious misconduct, and she was liable for disciplinary action”.

“The applicant was forbidden from speaking to anyone about the matter, other than advisors,” he said.

“The applicant was shocked at her suspension. She described a range of intense negative emotions. She immediately felt ill, nauseous, faint and anxious.

“She felt ashamed, despondent, scared and alienated. She was tearful, unable to sleep and overemotional. She experienced panic attacks. At times she seriously felt suicidal.”

Lieschke said while Summerton’s manager initially told her the investigation would “hopefully be over in a couple of weeks”, it took three months and repeated requests for the hospital to provide details of the allegations that she had provided “confidential hospital records to the patient’s parent without confidentiality”.

“The record was of the mother having visited the baby she had recently given birth to,” Lieschke said.

In January the following year, seven months after she was suspended, Summerton was advised by the hospital that she was guilty of misconduct over the matter and would receive a “managerial caution”.

Lieschke explained she was then directed to report back to work to the same manager who had suspended her “although by then she was totally incapacitated for work by reason of the adjustment disorder and the aggravated Crohn’s disease”.

The sanction was finalised in writing in March 2018, nine months after her suspension.

Summerton was also advised by the nursing regulation agency that it had also investigated the matter but found no further action would be taken.

“The applicant emphasised the very significant adverse psychological reaction she had to the Kafkaesque way she was treated by her employer, starting with the phone call to suspend her, and continuing over the following nine months,” Lieschke said in his ruling.

“This was in a context of long and loyal service… as a senior (neonatal) nurse.

“I uphold the claim that the workplace psychiatric injury significantly contributed to the acceleration of Crohn’s disease and its surgical treatment of October 2018.”

Although Summerton was permitted to return to her role at Flinders Medical Centre, her psychological injury has prevented that.

She still works for SA Health – now at BreastScreen SA, where she feels more supported.

In its appeal documents lodged with the SA Employment Tribunal, the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network says it “challenges the trial judge’s decision” to uphold Summerton’s claims that her psychiatric injury significantly contributed to the acceleration of Crohn’s disease and its surgical treatment in 2018, as well as her claim that the psychiatric injury separately significantly contributed to the need for the 2018 surgery.

SALHN says there is “no contest” that Summerton’s Crohn’s disease “accelerated following her suspension”.

“At contest at trial was whether that acceleration was causally related to the stressful events in 2017 and 2018 and the resulting psychiatric injury,” it states.

SALHN argues the trial judge “mischaracterised the dispute” and failed to give adequate reasons and procedural fairness.

Calling for the appeal to be dismissed – and for SA Health to pay Summerton’s legal costs – her lawyers argue in documents filed with the court that “it was open to (the trial judge) to make findings which he did” and that “there was no material error in making those findings”.

They also say “it was essentially common ground that there was an aggravation of her Crohn’s disease from about June 2017, and it was common ground that the increased disease activity materially caused the October 2018 surgery”.

“The issue between the parties was whether Ms Summerton’s psychological injury materially caused that aggravation. On this issue, the trial judge preferred the evidence of Ms Summerton’s treating practitioners,” her lawyers state.

The lawyers say “to the extent that there was any mischaracterisation of the issues in the early paragraphs of the (trial judge’s) decision, that mischaracterisation was immaterial”.

“Ultimately, this was a case of causation in an area where medical science could not provide a definitive answer, but where medical experts gave evidence to the effect that in their opinion the relevant causal connection was established, and where the facts strikingly suggested the relevant causal connection,” they state.

“The relevant findings made by his Honour were reasonably open to him, and, fairly read in the context of the manner in which the trial was conducted, his Honour’s reasoning was more than adequately explained.”

Asked by InDaily to comment on the impact of the appeal, Summerton’s lawyer, Margaret Kaukas, an employment law specialist from Andersons Solicitors, said: “Appeals add delay to the final resolution for an injured worker and make it very difficult for an injured worker to move on.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network said: “We are unable to provide comment on individual employee matters or ongoing matters before the courts.”

A full bench of the SA Employment Tribunal is now considering whether to allow the appeal and is expected to make a decision in the next few months.