A remarkable paragraph from yet another remarkable recent article!
But the greatest scandal is NOT that if anyone has a problem with a doctor that they won’t get anywhere trying to get any help from other doctors and/or their professional bodies, like the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, and that this is never going to change.
The scandal, and it’s SUCH a scandal, is that health services consumers have come to believe that there’s NO ONE they can complain to and not find it to have been a complete waste of their time and effort – not even the bodies that are supposed to be regulating doctors, in New South Wales, for instance, like the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the Medical Council of NSW, and now, it would appear, the NSW Information and Privacy Commission, and for good reason.
This is strongly confirmed by such things as the Graeme Reeves story. Graeme Reeves, who came to be known as the Butcher from Bega, eventually lost his registration as a doctor, but it was on the basis that there was misinformation in his job application – not on the basis that anyone was complaining that he was a poor doctor. In fact, at the hearing that led to him losing his registration, it was specifically stated that no one was complaining that he wasn’t a good doctor – and, that, in fact, there were other doctors prepared to testify that he was a good doctor.
But when his case got some publicity in the media it is said that 500 women came forward with complaints. Why on earth hadn’t any of these 500 women complained before? Obviously because they would have thought it would turn out to be a complete waste of their time and effort.
The irony is that although it is reported that, “around the water cooler in the mornings,” his fellow surgeons used to say to Dr Jayant Patel things like, “And who are you going to kill today?” – they knew exactly what was going on – but even these surgeons may well have thought that complaining to anyone would turn out to be a complet waste of their time and effort.
We at bestdoctorssydney1.com have the time, we have the legal training and we have the interest in these matters, but we still get nowhere with complaints to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the Medical Council of NSW, and it would appear, now, the NSW Information and Privacy Commission.
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