Page 3491 - Week 13 - Thursday, 26 November 1992
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proximity of Mrs Carnell. What has occurred here is madness. The advisability of having people who believe that they may be HIV positive come forward for testing in circumstances where their privacy is protected is an issue which is addressed by the national HIV/AIDS strategy, and the second issue that they deal with is the need for HIV positive persons to take all necessary precautions to avoid infecting others. What Mrs Carnell proposes is something which will result in the reverse.
In amending the Public Health (Infectious and Notifiable Diseases) Regulations the Government is ensuring that these issues continue to be appropriately addressed. Further, unlike the Liberals, we are bringing the ACT into line with the HIV notification practices in other States, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, the most significant States as far as the ACT is concerned. The other States will move because, unlike the backward Liberals opposite, they will recognise the benefits of this move. At the same time we are picking up the key public health recommendations in the final report of the legal working party of the Intergovernmental Committee on AIDS, which was ratified at the last meeting of the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Committee and released on 9 November. The form and content of HIV notifications to public health authorities across all jurisdictions vary. In amending these regulations the ACT will be meeting two key recommendations of the Intergovernmental Committee on AIDS. I will quote a couple of them. The first is:
Notification requirements in State and Territory public health legislation should be uniform for HIV infection and AIDS, using the data set out in the form, as in use from time to time, developed by the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research.
The new form is in line with the national centre's form. The second recommendation I quote is:
Only coded ... data should be required to be notified in State and Territory public health legislation with the obligation to do so being placed on laboratories in cases of HIV infection and on doctors in the case of clinical diagnosis of AIDS.
These amended regulations require a coded notification and the forms are there for both the laboratory and the doctor. It should be noted that in making these recommendations the legal working party recognised the need to balance the following objectives: Epidemiological surveillance for planning, evaluation, resource allocation and trend tracking; privacy protections for HIV positive persons while collecting data of value to public health; and collection only of reliable data in a practical and efficient manner. At the same time, the legal working party recognised the importance of balancing partner notification, professional safeguards for doctors and other health care workers, and the need to protect the public from infection. Those are not things that the Liberals are concerned about.
Mr Moore: The need to prevent the public from infection, I believe you said.
Mrs Carnell: Absolutely important.
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