Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5002 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

All action on these reports was put on hold when the High Court was asked to consider whether a consumer had a non-statutory right to access their health record in the case of Breen v. Williams. This case involved a woman seeking access to her health record in relation to potential breast implant litigation. This case had come through the New South Wales Supreme Court, and the judgments and attitudes to health consumers implicit in them make fascinating reading. The High Court handed down its decision in 1996. Judges unanimously confirmed that health care consumers had no common law right of access to their own health records and that it was up to the legislature to introduce such rights if they were considered appropriate. While freedom of information laws have provided a vehicle for access to medical records to a certain degree, as the Chief Minister pointed out in her tabling speech, there has been an anomaly in the ACT because the Freedom of Information Act covers only government agencies; so there is no guarantee of access for public patients at Calvary Hospital to FOI.

Once the High Court handed down its decision the Commonwealth had a number of choices to address this issue. One was to act just in relation to health records. Carmen Lawrence had been keen to pursue this route when she was Minister for Health. The Government decided to wait until the High Court decision had been handed down and by then, of course, the Government had changed. The second option was to act more broadly by extending the operation of the Privacy Act to the private sector. One of the information privacy principles in that legislation specifies that a consumer must be provided with access to personal information held about them except in exceptional circumstances. This broad approach was looking the most likely until the Commonwealth Government, in March, announced that it would not be seeking to extend the Privacy Act to the private sector because it wanted to reduce regulation on business. It is hard to see the justification for this in the health records area, even if there were valid broader concerns in relation to other areas of business. Sacrificing privacy protection of personal health information and refusing to allow health care consumers a right of access to that most personal of all information, that about their own health, on the basis of free market rhetoric is most inappropriate.

The Minister for Health and Family Services, Dr Wooldridge, announced immediately after the Prime Minister's do-nothing strategy was released that he would develop a voluntary code for patient access to medical records. Given that there has been a voluntary code in place for several years, the AMA guidelines for doctors on patient access to medical records, it is unclear how the Minister thinks that this new process will improve the position for health consumers. Some of the public discussion on the issue has focused on enforcement measures for a voluntary code - rather a contradiction in terms, one might think. There have been a few other developments in the Federal arena, but the short story is that the ACT Government, quite rightly, I believe, has decided to lead the way.

As members are aware, this legislation follows on from a public position paper on privacy of consumer health information and consumer access to their own health information. Significantly, the legislation applies to both private and public sectors. The Bill establishes a set of privacy principles covering collection, storage and security of information, individual access and correction and disclosure of information.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .