A health staffer who worked alongside a male pedophile nurse at a Tasmanian hospital believes there was a culture among senior management of not talking about "challenging issues".
An inquiry examining state government responses to child sexual abuse allegations in the public service is this week focusing on James Geoffrey Griffin.
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Griffin, who worked at the Launceston General Hospital children's ward for almost two decades, took his own life in 2019 after being charged with child sexual abuse offences.
Nurse Maria Unwin said she spoke to a unit manager about concerns over Griffin's tendency to want to look after teenage girls.
"The response was 'everyone has something to offer', which made me feel like I was being harsh and judging someone unnecessarily," she told the inquiry on Tuesday.
Not long after starting on the ward in 1993, Ms Unwin said she was told by a colleague of a nurse who was shifted between departments after being "caught in the act" of abusing a child.
Ms Unwin was told in 2019 by a former colleague of the allegations against Griffin.
"I was horrified," she said.
There was a group of staff who admired Griffin, she said, and at times a culture of not talking about challenging issues and concerning behaviour.
"I strongly feel that was coming from above, very senior management," she said.
Kylee Pearn, a former social worker at the hospital, told the inquiry she disclosed to LGH human resources in 2011 that her then-colleague Griffin had abused her as a child but the complaint went nowhere.
"The response was there was nothing they could do without a conviction," she said.
"They had looked into him ... and he had been on (the ward) for a long time. They said he would cause too much of a fuss if he was taken from that ward."
Ms Pearn made a formal complaint to police in 2019.
Department of Health human resources manager James Bellinger told the inquiry he learned about Ms Pearn's 2011 disclosure in 2019 and said it should have been forwarded to authorities at the time.
The inquiry has been told of numerous boundary breaches by Griffin, including kissing and hugging child patients and giving teenage girls advice about "what boys like".
Abuse survivors, a human resources representative and former nurse manager are among witnesses on Wednesday.
