The recent news showing a Melbourne chiropractor manipulating a two-week-old baby has sparked public outrage, with the Victorian Health Minister describing the video images as ‘disturbing’. AHPRA swiftly imposed an undertaking on the chiropractor which effectively restricted him from providing chiropractic treatment to children from birth to 12 years of age.
While this disciplinary action from AHPRA is appropriate to protect public health and safety, AHReform received reports that AHPRA had imposed harsher disciplinary action on other registrants who did not appear to have caused as much public health risk as this chiropractor, or at least not to the same degree of public outrage.
For example, Dr Yolande Lucire, a psychiatrist from NSW, was suspended after she raised concerns about the danger of callous prescribing of certain anti-depressants. Dr Gary Fettke, an orthopaedic surgeon from Tasmania, received disciplinary action from the Medical Board for giving dietary advice to his patients to reduce diabetes-related health risk. Dr Richard Emery, a talented neurosurgeon was subjected to gruelling investigations by AHPRA following complaints by his local competitor, and the whole bullying process eventually drove him out of the country. Dr Charlie Teo, another prominent neurosurgeon was also subjected to AHPRA investigation despite his benevolent effort to push for innovative surgery for his patients. An obstetrician who respected his patient’s autonomy to refuse pregnancy termination by the hospital was subjected to condition imposed on his registration. There are many more cases of medical practitioners receiving various degree of disciplinary actions or threats by AHPRA based on vexatious complaints and sham peer review. This prompted Senator Nick Xenophon to describe AHPRA behaviour as being “all about protecting a closed shop rather than the best standards of patient care”.
We could not help but ask how AHPRA judges the degree of public health risk, and how AHPRA works out what type of disciplinary action it should take. What professional standard is AHPRA going by?
According to the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act, which may vary from state to state, it appears that the ‘National Board may take action if a National Board reasonably believes…the way a registered health practitioner registered by the Board practises the health profession, or the practitioner’s professional conduct, is or may be unsatisfactory,…’
This law essentially gives immeasurable power to the Board to act against a practitioner in any way it wishes because there is no clear definition what constitutes unsatisfactory conduct. The wording ‘may be’ gives rise to subjective perception, as opposed to substantial evidence, which is a very low threshold for the Board to take any disciplinary action. As the Board is made up of a handful of chosen practitioners, the fate of the practitioner under investigation practically lies in the hands of this small group of elites within the profession who acts like a judge, jury and executioner.
Meanwhile, as the Boards are self-governed by their respective profession, the Chiropractor Board may hold a different opinion from the Medical Board as to what practice would constitute professional misconduct or substandard care, and under what circumstances disciplinary action should be taken.
Recent news emerged that the Medical Board is taking a tougher stance on medical practitioners who offer complimentary alternative medicine (also known as CAM). On 15 February 2019, the Medical Board began consulting on options to more clearly regulate medical practitioners who provide complementary and unconventional medicine and emerging treatments. Details of this can be accessed online - https://www.medicalboard.gov.au/News/2019-02-15-public-consultation.aspx
While evidence-based medical practitioners may welcome the moves for greater scrutiny on unproven ‘witchcraft’, the question is why medical practitioners are being regulated so differently from other healthcare professionals (like Chinese Medicine, Pharmacy, Osteopath and Chiropractor) where selling of unproven remedies are rampant and have not been disallowed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the regulatory body for therapeutic goods in Australia.
Associate Professor Ken Harvey, the president of Friends of Science in Medicine, eloquently said that “It’s good that the medical board is having a look at issues we’ve been raising for many years. But why are they offering this attempted solution, rather than the other boards where these practices are more common?”
Would this not be an obvious form of double standard committed by our healthcare regulators?
Coincidence or not, a former staff of the regulator, Mr David Gardner has revealed the appalling state of our regulatory system where innocent practitioners were subjected to gruesome investigation and disciplinary action. According to The Age report, “former AHPRA employees also complain of the agency's failure to correctly assign risk to patient complaints, which meant some claims of serious malpractice were not pursued with any urgency, while other baseless allegations were investigated and later dismissed.”
This type of dysfunctional regulation affects all of us. The public deserves to have proper healthcare regulation so that they are not harmed by callous practitioners or deceived by unproven remedies. However, when ethical and caring practitioners are harassed or harmed by the regulatory process, it is of public interest that such bullying behaviour be put to a stop, or else the public would not be able to receive the care from these practitioners they trusted. Urgent reform is very much needed.
If you, or people you know, are affected by the current regulatory system, AHReform would like to hear your case or opinion, whether you are a doctor, a nurse, an allied health professional or a member of the public. Be assured that we are always open to constructive feedback, insight, and suggestions from our members and supporters. Signing this petition here matters to all of us who want to stop this bullying culture from harming our healthcare practitioners and health consumers alike.
AHReform can be contacted via email: australianhealthreformgroup@gmail.com
Your contact to AHReform would be very helpful for AHReform to prepare its submission to the Medical Board’s guidelines on CAM via email: medboardconsultation@ahpra.gov.au by 12 April 2019.