Written by Sarah Walls
See my talk here!
A fourth local ALP branch, Petersham, has passed motions supporting fairer compensation arrangements for injured patients. The first calls upon the NSW Minister for Health, Ryan Park, to include patient harm and appropriate compensation in the terms of reference for the special commission of enquiry into NSW health services, which is expected to start in late 2023. The second calls on the Federal Government to take action, including ensuring that the commitment to the National Injury Insurance Scheme (NIIS) remains in the 2023 ALP national platform, and encouraging its implementation, particularly its medical treatment injury stream. Please support our petition for no-fault compensation for Australian injured patients.
Sarah was invited to talk at the August meeting of the branch. She emphasised the urgency of the issue: the ALP commitment to the NIIS, which includes no-fault compensation for catastrophic medical treatment injuries, was included in the 2021 national platform but is not mentioned in the draft 2023 national platform, which will be debated and adopted at the ALP national conference in Brisbane on 17-19 August.
Sarah spoke about her own experience of a medical treatment injury in 1990. Severe injury to her central nervous system ended her career as a journalist. In the 1990s, while on a disability support pension, she taught yoga part-time and lobbied for patient safety improvements. Both drugs prescribed for her were taken off the Australian market; a Medicare rebate was introduced for MRI scanning; the international diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis were revised so that treatment could only be given once the diagnosis was confirmed; and patient reporting of adverse drug reactions was introduced. But Sarah was unable to find an expert witness willing to support her, and so in 2001 she lost her compensation claim.
Sarah told the meeting that in its 2011 report the Productivity Commission had looked in detail at litigation and no-fault compensation as means for delivering compensation to injured patients. The Commission came down squarely in favour of no-fault compensation. Overall, it found, “no-fault systems were likely to produce generally superior outcomes compared with fault-based systems” and at a lower cost.
She explained that the Productivity Commission had laid down a blueprint for a no-fault compensation scheme for catastrophic medical treatment injuries and a pathway for expanding the scheme to cover other significant injuries. She pointed out that the forthcoming special commission of enquiry into NSW health services provided an ideal opportunity for examining the issue of patient harm and appropriate compensation. The branch passed the two motions unanimously.
Please encourage everyone you know to sign and share our petition. The more people sign, the greater the chance that politicians will act on no-fault compensation for injured patients. It is time that injured patients ceased to be hidden from view.
We are very grateful for your continuing support.
Sarah and Vickie