Senior Active Doctors

MeetingSunday 4/3/2012

St George Leagues Club, Kogarah

The Issue

The current registration category Limited Registration (Public Interest Occasional Practice) (LR-PIOP) is to be abolished in 2013 removing 1800 senior doctors from the register. LR-PIOP was closed for new entrants on 1/7/2010

How did we get here? 2005 – 2010 National registration –

architect, Prof Stephen Duckett [ex Alberta, Canada] vehicle COAG/Productivity Commission

Creation of AHPRA, no single jurisdictional accountability (i.e. no accountability)

Medical Board of Australia – ‘supported by (managed by) AHPRA’

AHMAC

AHPRA

MBA

State Medical Councils

Doctor

“Official” NRAS Structure

Reality

AHPRA

AHMAC MBA State Medical Council

Doctor

Who is AHPRA?

Mr Peter Allen (Public servant) VIC Prof Con Michael (O & G) WA Prof Genevieve Gray, (Nursing) QLD Mr Michael Gorton (Lawyer) VIC Prof Merrilyn Walton (Social Work)

NSW

Who are the AHPRA administrators? Mr Martin Fletcher, Master of Public Sector Management, former UK

Public servant Mr Chris Robinson, Former registered nurse and Director of the

NRAIP Mr John Iiott, Former hospital executive and finance director Mr Jim O’Dempsey, Former nurse, now AHPRA Business

Improvement and Innovation Director Ms Dominique Saunders, Lawyer & social worker Ms Ann Morrison, QLD Manager, former nurse Mr Bob Bradford, ACT Manager, (military logistics) Mr Richard Mullaly, VIC Manager, former public hospital manager Ms Lisa Wardlaw-Kelly, TAS Manager, former nurse & health

regulator Ms Robyn Collins, WA Manager, former midwife & nursing professor Ms Jill Huck, NT Manager, former social worker & public servant Ms Kay Ascough, NSW Manager, lawyer & former public servant Ms Diana Newcombe, SA Manager, lawyer & former public servant

Who is the Medical Board of Australia? Dr Joanna Flynn, Chair, GP Dr Stephen Bradshaw, Vascular surgeon Dr Mary Cohn, GP A/Prof Peter Procopis, Paediatric neurologist Dr Fiona Joske, GP Dr Charles Kilburn, Paediatrician Prof Mark McKenna, O & G Dr Trevor Mudge, O & G Ms Sophie Panagiotidis, Social work Prof Belinda Bennett, Lawyer Ms Prudence Ford, Former public servant, now

consultant Mr Paul Laris, Social work

Senior doctors’ position

Offered LR-PIOP until 2013. This category closed 1/7/2010 for new entrants

Doctors not on the general or LR-PIOP register must not practise the profession as defined

Motions1. This meeting calls on the Medical Board of

Australia to re-open the closed registration category called ‘Public interest, Occasional practice’, remove its sunset clause, allow all medical practitioners who have not been able to register in this category the right to do so, and establish this category as a permanent registration classification.

2. That this meeting endorses the following definition of medical practice. “Medical practice means any role in which medical practitioners use their professional discretion within the limits of their knowledge, skill, and training as medical practitioners for the direct or indirect benefit of patients.”

The Economics

As Australia’s population ages, there will be pressure on the health budget

By maximising the contribution of senior doctors through user-friendly registration categories, Australia and Australian will have better and less costly health care.

The morality

Our senior doctors have a great capacity to continue to do good for others and must be allowed to do so

The Hypocrisy The argument that our senior doctors cannot be trusted to

exercise their privileges with discretion and judgement is without evidence.

It’s a slur on one section of the profession who have shown throughout their professional career, just the opposite.

It’s also at odds with the fact that a doctor at any age can stay on the general register.

It ignores the fact that substantial public safeguards apply to all doctors including those on the occasional practice.

It is an argument developed by bureaucrats to defend de-professionalisation for ideological reasons, namely to remove the medical profession from the apex of healthcare in Australia. Privileges have been extended to other groups who have less training to use them than the senior doctors who are denied them.