Page 707 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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better than they were a few years ago in that fewer people need to be involved in the chain of carrying out the testing and courier procedures.
Whilst in principle there are no compelling arguments for the rejection of this bill, there are a number of areas that at least require clarification and possible future amendments to ensure that these testing procedures are not compromised. As I stand here today, I do not have any amendments in mind. There are simply a number of points of clarification required. If we on this side of the chamber are not satisfied that some of those areas are well and truly looked after, we might come back one day and seek to amend them. But I do not think that is necessarily going to be the case.
An amendment to section 6 of the current act provides that the minister appoint the analysts that the minister considers necessary under the act. It also allows the minister to approve a laboratory or other entity as an approved laboratory under the act. I assume that this means, in effect, that testing does not necessarily need to be carried out in hospitals or in another sample and collection facility that the public and private sectors might provide. For example, I understand private providers in town can be called upon to provide a service if, for some reason, the existing facilities and testing stations at the hospital are out of action.
It seems reasonable for the minister to be able to approve a laboratory in the ACT; of course it does. However, if such a dedicated resource does not exist, it should be incumbent upon the minister to ensure that such a laboratory is provided for the purposes required under the act so that the resources for blood testing and the collection of samples are always available when needed within the required time frames. I see him nodding in a reassuring fashion. In other words, although the minister may approve a facility for this purpose, he should also ensure that, given the six-hour rule, which I will discuss shortly, a facility is always able to carry out the procedures in the time frames required under the act. I see no reason why he would not be able to do that.
The bill also amends section 15AA to clarify that a doctor or nurse is only required to take a blood sample from a person where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a driver was involved in an accident that occurred less than six hours before the person arrived at hospital. That is sensible because it means that a doctor or a nurse now cannot be criticised or held to some account beyond the six-hour period, which they could in theory be now if somebody was concerned that perhaps a test should have been taken. So this makes it very, very clear-cut. The six-hour mark is now in place, and doctors and nurses can feel relieved that they have either done their duty or, if beyond that time limit, they cannot be given a kick in the bum when they do not deserve it.
The amendment also stipulates that the sample must be taken within two hours of the person presenting at the hospital or a penalty of 10 units applies to the medical practitioner. That means that the obligation is certainly set in concrete, and we support that. However, in the case where a person presents at the hospital, say, five hours after an accident, that leaves a one-hour window in which a sample can be collected. If it then takes a doctor or nurse longer than one hour to collect the sample—I do not think it would but, if for some reason it did; in effect, they have two hours to do so—then I assume it would be rendered a useless sample. I am sure that is the case. So you cannot take a sample at 6½ hours because it took place an hour and a half after the person presented.
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