Page 3677 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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believes on reasonable grounds that the patient has still not notified partners at risk, then at that time the doctor may - and I stress may - notify the relevant third parties. As you can see, there is a process involved, and that process must be adhered to if the doctor is to gain legal protection in case of breach of confidence actions.
There can be no doubt that this is moderate and well-balanced legislation. It conforms with the stipulations of the Intergovernmental Committee on AIDS, and it takes into account the interests of the person suffering from AIDS. However, it also allows doctors to act in cases where they believe that there is a grave risk that HIV will be transmitted to other people.
The special need for this legislation comes about because the Government has now decided to have AIDS and HIV notified on the basis of coded information only. This means that in the case of these conditions the notification procedure is no longer serving any public health benefit, as it should. Its sole remaining value appears to be in gaining epidemiological statistical information.
The public health officer has always had the power to take action if she/he believes that there is a risk that a disease may be spread. But, under the coded information arrangements, any powers that the public health officer may have had before have become academic. There is no way of knowing when a public health risk occurs, because the treating doctor cannot pass on the relevant information to the Medical Officer of Health. What good is the power to act if you do not have the information? My legislation attempts to restore some balance to this issue. It attempts to reintroduce public health considerations. In particular, it takes into account the way that HIV is being transmitted within Australia.
AIDS campaigns have paid a lot of attention to the problems of AIDS transmission within the gay community and within the heterosexual community. These campaigns are very important and have a tremendously important ongoing role to play. It is the case, however, that not enough attention has been paid to transmission between the two communities. In particular, it appears that a significant proportion of those men who practise bisexual sex are not being reached, either by education campaigns or by public health measures. I would judge that women are at greatest risk from bisexual transmission of HIV, and not enough has been done to protect them.
The Government certainly has not done enough. They endeavoured to introduce one element of the report produced by the legal working party of the Intergovernmental Committee on AIDS, and then they had the dishonesty to wave around the report as if it were the Bible. The truth is, of course, that they did not appear to read past the first page, as I think I have stated before. The Liberal Party would like to address this failure by implementing recommendations of the Intergovernmental Committee on AIDS in a more complete way - unlike the Government, who wanted to introduce only part of the package.
I should point out some additional aspects of this Bill. Mr Berry said in his speech when I moved to disallow the coded notification of HIV that there was no problem, because if a doctor suspected that a patient was engaging in unsafe behaviour he or she could just tell the Medical Officer of Health. I am not sure what the legality of this is, given that the Government has just introduced coded information. You cannot introduce coded information, yet say that there is
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