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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 30 ..

MR OSBORNE: My question is to the Minister for Health, Mrs Carnell. Minister, I refer you to an article in the Canberra Times on Saturday, 8 February this year, where some details are given regarding an investigation into the competency of a surgeon who operates in Canberra's hospitals. Specific allegations were drawn to your attention in May last year by one of the surgeon's colleagues that he was "dangerous" and had been responsible for the death of a patient and for serious complications in three others - allegations which I am sure you will agree, Minister, are extremely serious. According to this article, you wrote to the ACT Medical Board last July and ordered an immediate investigation. In August, you directed the ACT Health Complaints Commissioner, Ken Patterson, to conduct his own inquiry and report his findings to the Medical Board. In the article of 8 February, Ken Patterson stated that his investigation would take up to another four months to complete and he could report to the Medical Board, who would then make an assessment of that report and take up the option of holding their own inquiry if the evidence warranted such action. Mrs Carnell, given that it will take at least 12 months from May before Ken Patterson will present his report to the Medical Board and that it may take many months more for the board inquiry to run its course, can you reassure us, in view of the serious nature of these allegations, that the length of this whole process is in the best interests of, firstly, the surgeon concerned and, more importantly, the general public? What do you consider is an adequate timeframe for these sorts of investigations, which I think should be around a couple of months at the most? Will you resource the office of our Health Complaints Commissioner accordingly so that he can look into these matters more quickly?

MRS CARNELL: I thank the member for his question. This is a particularly difficult issue, I have to say. I agree totally that this has taken far too long. When we first received some complaints, we reacted immediately to the input from the community with regard to the complaints. As we have already heard, we immediately instituted proceedings with the Medical Board, with the hospitals involved, and with the Health Complaints Unit. My understanding is that it has been handled appropriately, but I agree totally with Mr Osborne that it has taken too long.

With regard to resourcing of the Health Complaints Unit, the commissioner has not indicated that he requires any more resourcing for this particular case. If he did, as has been the case in the past, we would certainly look at that. I believe that we do need to look at methods by which we can ensure that these sorts of investigations happen significantly more quickly than has been the case in this situation. I am disappointed that we had to continue to drive these series of allegations through the system.

I would also like to say that we must make sure, as Mr Osborne has already said, that fairness and equity occurs all round and that the doctor does get a fair hearing. I understand that already a couple of the complaints involved have been looked at and that no medical problems whatsoever have been found in those cases. But it does need to be hurried up, and we have certainly indicated to the Health Complaints Commissioner that we would like that to happen.

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