VICDOC Autumn 2023 - Magazine - Page 57
existing state-based systems. Both claims
proved to be untrue for Victoria. Annual
registration fees almost doubled overnight.
The valuable Victorian Doctors Health
Program came close to collapse through
lack of funding. The Victorian Medical
Practitioners board’s unique free support
service for patients who made allegations
of sexual misconduct by doctors was
abandoned. And any control or influence
of the Victorian health minister on
the regulation of Victoria’s health
professionals suddenly became remote.
With time, flaws in the national law on
which the scheme is based have become
evident. These include a mandatory
requirement that treating doctors must
notify AHPRA if a doctor under care may
be ill and impaired, a requirement that is
self-defeating as it inhibits ill doctors from
seeking medical care. The national law is
difficult to amend as any changes have to
be agreed by the health ministers, then
put to the Queensland Parliament and
later adopted by the other state and
territory legislatures.
It is unclear to most doctors whether
they are regulated by AHPRA, the
Medical Board of Australia or both
organisations. It is also unclear which
organisation takes precedence should
disagreements prove unresolvable.
AHPRA employs all the investigative
staff; few of these have personal
knowledge or experience of working
in health care. As a result AHPRA has
struggled to separate the less serious
from the more serious complaints and
to identify vexatious complaints. More
recently AHPRA has added a layer of
clinical advisers as an admission of
this problem.
What did Victorians lose through
joining the national scheme? In regard
to the regulation of its doctors, they
lost a Medical Practitioners Board
composed of nine medical practitioners,
two community members and a lawyer, a
board accountable directly to the Minister
for Health. They lost an innovative
approach to handling allegations of
sexual misconduct that included the
appointment of a female investigating
officer with degrees in law and psychology
and an independent service funded by the
Board to support distressed complainants
during and after all the stressful stages of
processing these complaints.
Victoria’s doctors also lost much. They
lost a board that was visible, approachable,
generally trusted and familiar with
medical practice in Victoria. They lost
the targeted, readable and informative
annual reports and regular bulletins. They
experienced steep rises in annual renewal
of registration fees. They lost medically
qualified investigating officers employed
by the board; officers with the skills and
knowledge to treat complainant and
doctor fairly and even-handedly. They
almost lost their valued Victorian Doctors
Health Program, established in 2000 and
funded fully by the medical profession
via annual renewal of registration fees.
Luckily it was rescued partly because
successive Victorian health ministers also
appreciated its value to distressed doctors
and distressed medical students.
The Victorian Parliamentary inquiry
into AHPRA and the national scheme
that reported in 2014 recommended
that Victoria copy NSW and become
a ‘co-regulated’ jurisdiction, leaving
AHPRA with the core role of maintaining
a national register. The Victorian
community and all of Victoria’s health
professionals will be well-served if this
nine-year-old recommendation is now
acted upon.
-
Dr Kerry Breen AM has been a member of the
AMA since 1965. He served on the Medical
Practitioners Board of Victoria from 19812000 and as its President from 1994-2000.
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