For further information, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.

National Registration brings with a requirement that health professionals and employers must report other professionals who are deemed to be placing rhe public at risk of harm, for example by being intoxicated while at work, or for departing from accepted standards of safe care.

This article questions the wisdom of this requirement.

A proposed national accreditation scheme … will make it mandatory for practitioners to report others they fear are placing the public at risk.

Reportable conduct includes a physical or mental impairment affecting a doctor’s ability to practise or a departure from accepted professional standards, as well as drug and alcohol abuse or sexual misconduct.

… “A statutory duty to report is likely to create a punitive atmosphere and a culture of fear among practitioners … and potentially drive problems underground,” …

The association wants spouses, practising doctors and health advisory services exempted from any potential mandatory reporting laws.

That’s an interesting request. This part of the legislation has supposedly come into effect after the cases incolving Dr Graeme Reeves and Dr Jayant Patel. It is no longer acceptable to sit by while a colleague harms patients. Why should doctors be exempt from the requirement, while all other health professionals need to comply?

… Claire Moore said there remained an overriding public belief that doctors protected one another, especially in the wake of surgeon Jayant Patel’s case at Bundaberg.

The public needed to be reassured there were adequate safeguards in place to protect patients, she said.

Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448