Page 913 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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ACT government has ultimately adopted an approach that seeks to retain the progressive health complaints system that we have had here for over the last 17 years.
I do have faith in the integrity of the ACT boards as they are constituted today, but I also recognise the significant concerns that have been raised in the past about the ability of health practitioners to hold their peers to account when serious matters are raised. It is incredibly important that our health complaints system is seen to be free from perceived bias. We should do all we can to ensure that consumers will not think that boards will protect their colleagues at the expense of patient safety.
And so today, while there is a role for the peer review model and for boards to look into complaints raised about health practitioners, their role needs to be balanced by the incorporation of an independent health services commissioner. There have been a number of significant cases over the years that give weight to our need for an independent commissioner and the role the commissioner takes. Take, for example, the Chelmsford hospital deep sleep controversy of the 1980s, where the New South Wales Medical Board was seen to be either powerless or unwilling to deal with the doctors concerned. The royal commission into the Chelmsford hospital found that 24 patients had died as a result of deep sleep therapy, a treatment where a cocktail of drugs was administered to keep patients unconscious for weeks at a time, only waking them up for electroconvulsive therapy. A number of other patients committed suicide and close to 1,000 suffered brain damage.
It was this tragedy that caused the New South Wales government to introduce, in 1993, an independent health complaints commissioner. The ACT followed suit that year. It may be the case that the awful story surrounding Dr Patel in Queensland gave COAG the impetus to set up a national registration and accreditation scheme. While nothing of such scale has occurred in the ACT, there have been cases from time to time that do contribute to the death of a patient. So I am relieved that here today we are passing legislation that will ensure the ACT continues to have the most progressive method for handling health complaints.
I understand that Mr Hanson, as he has already discussed, will be moving amendments to the bill to take the ACT essentially back to a peer review model of complaints. I can indicate now that the Greens will not be supporting his move, for the reasons I have outlined earlier. I will be moving a small amendment later, at the detail stage, which seeks to better reflect the reality of the relationship between the commissioner and the board. I will talk to that when I move the amendment. The Greens will be supporting the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (ACT) Bill 2009. We are pleased to see that the ACT government is committed to seeing complaints about health practitioners handled in a progressive manner.
I will just make a few comments on the scrutiny of bills as there were a number of issues which we raised in a briefing with the department. Two issues in particular, which were key, related to the provision of legal representation and guidelines for interpreting the relevance of criminal convictions. We have since received information from the minister’s office in relation to these questions and I thank the minister’s office for that information.
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