Channel 7 Today Tonight (Adelaide)
Dr Rabone and the Medical Board 23 March 2004

This version of the transcript has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles

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In order of appearance

Leigh McCluskey - presenter
Dr Rabone
Graham Archer - producer and interviewer
Tony - alleged victim of Dr Rabone
Dean Brown - Shadow Minister for Health

Program

Leigh McCluskey

Good evening and welcome to the program. Today there have been calls for an inquiry over the claims that an Adelaide doctor infected scores of patients with hepatitis C. Last night we brought you the disturbing story of the South Australian patients who became the innocent victims of a drug using doctor. And what is even more disturbing is the lack of action by health and government authorities, despite their protestation that they did all they could. While the infected patients are still fighting for recognition and compensation, authorities admit that they really don't know exactly how many more former patients may be carrying the hep C virus. Graham Archer has this report.

Dr Rabone

[On the street in Sydney] Not only that you're hurting the people who - There's a lot more involved - that a show like yours OK which is a trash show OK.

Graham Archer

He was playing a game of Russian roulette and pointing the gun at his patients?

Tony

Certainly, every thing has been pretty reckless, there's no doubt about that.

Graham Archer

Last night we brought you the alarming story of South Australian Dr Stephen Rabone.

Reporter in Sydney

[Chasing Dr Rabone] No need to run away sir, we just wanted to ask you some questions about your drug addiction and some patients who have complained that -

Graham Archer

Accused of infecting his patients with potentially fatal hepatitis C by injecting himself with their painkillers and then using the same needle on them - patients like Tony.

Tony

My wife's pretty forward in what she thought so she said well, what are we looking at?

Graham Archer

What was the prognosis?

Tony

His comment which absolutely floored me - and my ex-wife as well - is that you could be dead in four to six years.

Graham Archer

And it could be any one of us - as Tony had just one fleeting perfunctory visit to dress a wound after some surgery in Adelaide.

Tony

To go along to hospital and expect to get good care and good service - and end up with what everyone's ended up with - and I'm not just talking about myself - there's a group of people involved so -

Graham Archer

And the count of those infected is now a dozen. But what has made the situation much worse, is the failure by our health authorities to do much more than keep the matter to themselves. Right from the start, the government who ran the hospital refused to release Tony's own medical records.

Tony

The response we had was that they weren't going to hand them over.

Graham Archer

They just refused to give them to you?

Tony

It was certainly made as difficult as it could be for me.

Graham Archer

Even now, the President of the Medical Board at the time, Professor Ross Kalucy, is denying any knowledge of the case.

Graham Archer

Well what about the case of Dr Stephen Rabone?

Reporter in Sydney

[On the street chasing Dr Rabone] You gave them hepatitis C by sharing needles with them sir?

Professor Ross Kalucy

I don't know the case.

Graham Archer

I think you would?

Professor Ross Kalucy

No.

Graham Archer

You were President of the Board when that case went through.

Professor Ross Kalucy

Don't know.

Graham Archer

The Medical Board's own files prove the opposite. But there are others who also have a case to answer. As lawyer Peter Humphries suggests.

Peter Humphries

I had a meeting with Dean Brown when he was Minister of Health - and that was in July 1999. Nothing came of that.

Dean Brown

That's incorrect. For the lawyers to say that nothing occurred is just absolutely wrong - absolutely wrong.

Graham Archer

Let's say "nothing effective". While Labor was in power during Dr Rabone's stint at the Barmera Hospital between 1990 and 1991, Dean Brown was Minister for Health when the details of the spread of hepatitis C began to emerge.

Dean Brown

Well, firstly - the investigations were carried out to the full powers that the Health Commission and the Department of Human Services had.

Graham Archer

But they didn't interview, they didn't interview any patients?

Dean Brown

And they - but they have records and they have mandatory notification of diseases such as hepatitis C.

Graham Archer

That's true, and back in 1996 when the patients started testing positive, the Health Commission made a call to New South Wales, where Rabone was then practicing - asking their Medical Board if Rabone had hepatitis C. Three years later, nothing had been done. Our authorities were even denying knowing about the case.

Dean Brown

I can't answer for what response may have been given by those individual employees.

Graham Archer

Well, somebody ought to. But Dean Brown certainly put his name to this in December 2000.

Graphic

Letter from Dean Brown to Peter Humphries of Duncan Basheer Hannon. A common source of the infection among the persons interviewed was not demonstrated to a suitable scientific standard.

Graham Archer

Who knows who they interviewed? Certainly not the patients we've spoken to.

Tony

To my knowledge, I haven't been contacted by anyone from the hospital or by anyone in those areas.

Graham Archer

No one?

Tony

No - no-one.

Graham Archer

That's extraordinary?

Tony

I guess you would think it's unusual - yes.

Dean Brown

But those powers, those powers don't sit with the Department of Human Services. To go - and suddenly go into a doctors surgery, and go right through his records.

Graham Archer

But he was working out of a public hospital, there were records within the public hospital, there were people who were admitted to that public hospital. Surely, it's a government hospital? You've got access to those records for a start?

Dean Brown

I understand a number of the cases were people who were not patients of the hospital.

Graham Archer

Not so. According to their lawyers, every patient who's tested positive was a patient of the hospital.
Yeah - but look - start with those (holds out documents) they're sitting in the Crown Solicitor's office since 1992, they were an investigation by the Medical Board of this doctor, there are patient's names in there, enough to establish that you've got a problem, that your Health Commission had a serious problem.

Dean Brown

But - but you indicated they're files of the Medical Board?

Graham Archer

And the Crown Solicitor's Office.

Dean Brown

Yes, but I don't have access - the Minister for Health does not have access -

Graham Archer

But the Medical Board is a statutory body, and you're the Minister for Health at the time? You mean, you mean you're not communicating with each other?
Remember this is a government hospital. But by this time, instead of being helpful to the patients, it was in court against them. Which brings us back to the Medical Board and their files.

Graham Archer

And it was sitting in the Medical Board's files?

Dean Brown

Well, if it was sitting in the Medical Board's files, the Medical Board has to answer to that. I can't answer for that because I don't have access -

Graham Archer

Except, of course, the government via the Barmera Hospital was in court to stop access to the very files which could give a proper clue to extent of the public health risk.

Graham Archer

So they tried and they tried, to stop you getting it?

Peter Humphries

Yes, yes. As did the State government on behalf of the Barmera Hospital.

Graham Archer

The case reveals the self-serving nature of some of this state's authorities which should instead be serving the public interest. And even if the Medical Board was to lift its game - it seems it can't - as the current President Tony Clarkson has revealed.

Graphic

Medical Board News letter
The development of a more open and transparent system of complaints processing has become a priority. Inability of the Board to formally interview complainants is a distinct liability.

Graham Archer

You don't say? And Professor Kalucy himself reveals a blinkered view of the Board's ultimate duty.

Professor Ross Kalucy

The Board doesn't get any money from the state. It all comes from Doctors registration fees.

Graham Archer

So it's a statutory body but it's not funded?

Professor Ross Kalucy

No.

Graham Archer

Should it be funded?

Professor Ross Kalucy

I wouldn't think so. I think doctors should look after themselves.

Graham Archer

That's not the point. It's the rest of us we're worried about. And while Dean Brown has not distinguished himself, nor too has the current minister, Lea Stevens.

Peter Humphries

I got a phone call from her office communicating to me that she wasn't much interested in discussing it with me.

Graham Archer

It's pretty extraordinary isn't it?

Peter Humphries

Well, it's bewildering to me, I - I've always had great difficulty in understanding how it can be that governments take such a disinterested view of this issue.

Graham Archer

Steven's office didn't even have the courtesy to call us back. Not that this should be any great surprise from Mike Rann's friendly media policy. And to be fair to Dean Brown he at a least tried to amend the Medical Practitioners Act to make them more accountable.

Dean Brown

Firstly, we were insisting on a higher standard of blood - testing for blood born diseases by doctors, in fact my initial proposal was that every doctor every year - had to submit a test.

Graham Archer

We understand the Rann government has removed that proposal. As for Rabone? He's still denying any responsibility - while the number of potential victims goes unaccounted for. Meanwhile, Independent MP Nick Xenophon has called for an inquiry into the Medical Board. As for those patients we know about? What can you offer the people who are absolute innocent victims of this?

Reporter in Sydney

[Speaking with Dr Rabone in the street] Did you have a drug problem?

Dr Rabone

It's on the record it's on the record in the courts.

Reporter

But you didn't use any of your patients' needles and inject them?

Dr Rabone

No I did not.

Reporter

You categorically deny that?

Dr Rabone

Absolutely - and this whole thing - there has been a lot of misinformation here, it caused a lot of upset.

Reporter

How do you think they got hep C?

Dr Rabone

Well, I've got my theories ok and these things will come out.

Dean Brown

I'm willing to pursue with the Minister to make sure that the victims in this case are given the best possible medical treatment and advice that they can get. I'm equally - will pursue in the Parliament to make sure there are appropriate amendments to the Medical Practitioners Act which controls and governs the Medical Board and the powers they have.

Graham Archer

And how they use those powers?

Dean Brown

And how they use those powers.

And I put an obligation that there had to be mandatory testing. Now, I think that is the highest standard you can possibly apply. And this case, I think, justifies the need I put down.

Leigh McCluskey

We will be watching. Well, late this afternoon, we did receive a written response from health minister Lea Stephens, saying she had ordered a report into the issues we'd raised, and was also about to introduce the Medical Practices Bill 2004 that in part would seek to address some of the issues we've raised about doctors fitness and about how complaints to the Medical Board are handled. And as a footnote, Board members of the Barmera hospital told us today that despite them raising their concerns about Dr Rabone at the time, their concerns also fell on deaf ears.

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