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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 487 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the Health Professionals (Special Events Exemption) Bill has been developed to allow the ACT to accommodate the health care needs of overseas visitors who are in the Territory to prepare for, or participate in, international events. Where these visitors are accompanied by their own health care teams, the Bill will authorise the provision of health care services without the providers themselves needing to be registered in the ACT.

As it name suggests, the Bill in principle allows for certain special events to be exempted from the operation of the ACT health professional registration Acts. An exemption is provided by the Minister for Health and Community Care and a notice to this effect is published in the Gazette. Visiting overseas health professionals providing health services in accordance with the provisions of this legislation are exempted from the requirements of the health professionals registration Acts.

The Bill makes it very clear which events qualify for an exemption and specifies the limits on health services that may be provided under such an exemption. A special event must be one that involves a significant number of overseas participants, a visiting health professional must also be from overseas, and treatment must only be provided to visitors who are in the Territory to participate in the declared special event. The term "visitor" itself is also defined in the Bill as a person who is an overseas resident or an Australian resident who is a member of a visiting group of whom the majority are overseas residents.

In providing health services, there may be occasions when a visiting health professional has need to prescribe medication for visitors. Some of these medications are likely to be from a class of substances that come under restrictions of the ACT's poisons and drugs of dependence legislation. That legislation has been carefully drafted to control who may prescribe those substances and the requirements for filling such prescriptions. Effectively, these requirements are for prescriptions to be written by registered medical practitioners and for a pharmacist to determine that proper authorisation has been given before filling such prescriptions.

While it is not intended that the protective intent of poisons and drugs legislation be overridden, it is also not intended that a visiting health professional be unnecessarily restricted from the responsible prescribing of medication. Accordingly, the Bill also provides for the Minister to authorise, under a special event order, nominated health professionals to prescribe substances that are restricted substances or drugs of dependence. Such authorisations can only be made if the Minister is satisfied that adequate surety exists that the medications will only be prescribed for, and supplied to, persons the health professional is authorised to treat. The legislation also permits an authorised person or class or persons to fill such prescriptions. As added security, the Minister may also apply conditions to any authorisation given in relation to the prescribing of substances that are restricted or drugs of dependence.

In addition to providing authorisations for health care treatment by visiting overseas health professionals, the legislation also clarifies that persons with such an authority who provide health services according to the proposed legislation do not commit offences under the health registration or drugs and poisons legislation. It also proposes that complaints about health services provided under this Act would not be

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