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An HR director denied an employee the opportunity to discuss her disabilities and fitness for work because she'd already "made up her mind" to demote her, a tribunal has found.

Without any evidence that the employee's conditions prevented her from performing her role, the HR director pushed ahead with a number of discriminatory actions, NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal Senior Member Jane Smith and General Member Jane Goodman-Delahunty found.

The administrative support officer claimed NSW Health discriminated against her in 2022 because of her anxiety, depression, and Klippel Feil syndrome – the latter caused her "very crooked posture" and "relatively short neck", and rendered her left hand "unusable".

Specifically, she said, the employer subjected her to detriments when it: proposed moving her to a lower-graded and lower-paid role; required her to undertake a fitness-for-duty process, without medical evidence to support its position and without asking her if she needed assistance; exposed her to an "all-encompassing and invasive IME", which breached its own procedure for managing non-work related conditions; refused her requests for a medical assessment review process; and deemed her unfit for work and directed her to take leave...