Page 3992 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 16 December 1992
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Regulation 4 provides that a medical practitioner who has reason to believe that a person professionally attended by him is, or may be, suffering from an infectious disease or a notifiable disease is found to be present in a person that person shall be deemed to be suffering from that disease.
In my opinion this means that (despite the incidence of false positive results to the antibody test) a positive result means that an organism presumed to cause a notifiable disease has been found to be present in a person.
Even if this is not so, a positive result to the antibody test would at least mean that a medical practitioner would conclude that a person may be suffering from a notifiable disease. There is then an obligation to notify the Medical Officer of Health.
As to the answers to questions 1 and 2, this provides the answer to our first question and proves that the law in the ACT did require the reporting of the identity of HIV/AIDS patients to the Medical Officer of Health. Thus we also acknowledge that Wayne Berry was responsible, as Health Minister, for upholding this law. This answers our second question. The relevant document is annexure A that I previously tabled.
Then a Canberra doctor, Alex Proudfoot, became concerned because he believed that people were needlessly contracting AIDS. He had had some years of experience directly in public health administration in the area of sexually transmitted diseases. On 1 December 1990 Dr Proudfoot filed a freedom of information request to the ACT Health Department which sought all documents relating to HIV/AIDS notification procedures. The department delayed and resisted releasing the documents. The department then charged Dr Proudfoot $1,000 as a cost for his application, which he paid. After the time limit for response had expired, Dr Proudfoot appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Eventually he received a large batch of documents, including annexure A, the legal advice which I tabled earlier. On 11 August 1991 Dr Proudfoot wrote to Mr Berry saying:
I write to draw to your attention flouting of the ACT law on HIV notification and consequent preventable spread of AIDS.
Dr Proudfoot continued his letter by detailing several case histories which he says make clear the dangers of continued non-compliance with the law in question. The first two cases are HIV patients whom he says he became aware of in the course of his work as a medical practitioner. In the first case history he set out for Mr Berry's enlightenment, Dr Proudfoot ends by saying:
If a proper notification scheme had been in place, the woman's HIV infection would have been notified to the public health authority, who would have ensured that the spouse was told. Thus, the spouse's life would have been saved.
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