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New laws allowing the health watchdog to name and shame doctors who are under investigation for misconduct will only be used in exceptional circumstances – a move that has disappointed some patient advocates.
Changes expected to come into effect next week will let the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) make public statements about individuals under investigation who present an immediate and serious risk to public safety.
New laws will give the health professions watchdog power to issue public statements identifyingpractitioners who present an immediate and serious risk to public safety.Credit: Andrew Quilty
The watchdog’s general counsel, Dr Jamie Orchard, said on Wednesday that a high legal threshold would have to be reached before the powers were activated.
“It will be exceptional and I would be surprised if it’s more than a handful of cases a year,” he said.
Orchard said he expected they would mainly be used against unregistered people claiming to be registered medical practitioners.
Australian Patients Association acting director David Clarke said doctors should be more accountable and a public register of complaints established.
“It should be public information if practising doctors have long lists of complaints against them and findings,” Clarke said.
Multiple investigations by this masthead have revealed concerns about AHPRA’s regulatory processes, including lengthy delays in investigations, poor transparency and loopholes that allow doctors to maintain clean records despite complaints being substantiated.
Under the new system, public statements will be published on a standalone page on AHPRA’s website and links to this information will be displayed on the register of practitioners.
Individuals will be notified ahead of the statement being issued and given at least 24 hours to appeal its publication via a tribunal. The information will be removed once the watchdog determines there is a no longer a risk to the public.
Consumers Health Forum chief executive Elizabeth Deveny said the changes were a good start and would help protect the quality and safety of healthcare for patients.
She said unsafe behaviour often cropped up in areas of healthcare entrenched with stigma, such as plastic surgery, gender transitioning, mental health and weight loss. She said the complaints process needed to be simplified so that vulnerable patients knew where to go.
“There are so many ways for consumers to potentially complain, but it is very hard for people to know where to complain,” Deveny said.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners have previously hit out at the changes, saying they could unfairly damage the reputation of practitioners before an investigation has concluded.
AMA president Professor Steve Robson said he would continue advocating for the removal of “damning” public statements that breached the principles of natural justice.
“If a case is found to be unfounded, it’s too late for their reputation,” Robson said.
But Dr Anne Tonkin, chair of the Medical Board of Australia, said she would be “astonished” if a situation arose where a public statement was made about someone that was later found to be baseless.
“It’s going to be the serious ends of the notification we get, not the ones that may not have any substance to them,” she said.
AHPRA has existing powers to place a suspension or conditions on a registered practitioner’s public registration while an investigation is under way.
The watchdog on Wednesday outlined, via a briefing document, several historical cases in which it said the new powers could have been useful.
These included the case of Aliaa Sherif, who provided cosmetic services, including Botox, from a room in Melbourne’s south-east called the Feel Young Again clinic.
Sherif referred to herself as a doctor and a haematology specialist on the clinic’s website. While Sherif was a medical practitioner and haematologist in Egypt, she was never registered in Australia.
In another case, a Western Australian Tyson Vacher claimed to be a registered psychologist despite being unqualified and unregistered.
“Given the vulnerable patients he was working with, a public statement would have been helpful to warn the public about an unqualified and unregistered person holding himself out as a registered psychologist,” the watchdog said.
AHPRA also highlighted Muhammet Velipasaoglu, a Victorian man who pretended to be a dentist and smoked and talked on the phone while performing nine root canals on a patient in one sitting.
“The patient suffered a severe infection and pain after the procedure and required emergency treatment and corrective surgery,” AHPRA said.
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