Sponsored By
The Cricket Statisticians
Channel 7 Today Tonight (Adelaide)
The Medical Board – 18 April 2005
This version of the transcript has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles
In order of appearance
Leigh McClusky, Presenter
Dave Wright, Husband of Breast Cancer Victim Dorothy
Tony, Victim of Hepatitis C
Graham Archer, Producer and Interviewer
Prof Ross Kalucy, Former President, Medical Board of South Australia
Peter Humphries, Solicitor, Duncan, Basheer and Hannon
Bob Sneath, Chair, Parliamentary Review Committee
Dean Brown, Shadow Health Minister
Program
Leigh McClusky
South Australia's Medical Board should be all about protecting the rights of medical patients in our State. But that Board stands accused of putting its own interests in front of mere patients. From cases where the Medical Board appears to have gone out of its way not to help grieving families - to indulging in thousands of dollars of expensive wines - to being surprisingly forgiving when one of their own helps themselves to the Board's cash. Critics say the Board has many questions to answer.
As Graham Archer reports, the goings on of the Medical Board are now finally the subject of a Parliamentary Review Committee.
Dave Wright
I've never felt so much aggression in my life against a certain bunch of people - and I mean aggression. I'm not joking.
Tony (victim of Hep C)
It's just unbelievable. I mean, you know, you - the feelings that you have and the anger that you get just - I even struggle to talk about it now - it gets me upset.
Graham Archer
[File tape - To Professor Kalucy] I'd say it gets down to how the Board performs the cases.
Prof Ross Kalucy
[File tape] No, no, stop them. Stop the cameras. Or else I'd walk out. No, no, no. Stop the cameras for a minute. Stop the cameras.
Graham Archer
Stop the Cameras. You know you're in trouble when the local watchdogs appear to be licking the hands they ought to be prepared to bite.
Tony (victim of Hep C)
To the best of my knowledge, we haven't been contacted by the Medical Board, the Minister's office and certainly don't believe we've been contacted by the Health Commission.
Graham Archer
That's how it seems to be with too many of this State's public guardians. Consumer Affairs, the Environmental Protection Authority, the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board and the biggest professional lap-dogs of them all - the Medical Board of South Australia.
Dave Wright
As far as I'm concerned the Medical Board is the doctors' union and to put it in blunt Australian language, it's to cover their arse. That's it. That's the Medical Board's job.
Graham Archer
And there are numerous cases which give rise to that perception such as that of Dorothy Wright who died of breast cancer and blames the hormone replacement drug she was prescribed. When she discovered she had developed breast cancer, what was your reaction?
Dave Wright
One of shock - horror - and then absolute boiling, raging anger.
Graham Archer
Her husband Dave is left alone to speak on her behalf. Now her trust in specialist advice and care was misplaced. What you're saying is she was given no information about any side effects?
Dave Wright
No information about any side effects. No side effect information at all. She was virtually informed that HRT would make the world beautiful again and that was that.
Graham Archer
At what point did you put the treatment together with the breast cancer as the cause?
Dave Wright
Drug companies actually told us in no uncertain manner that testosterone was not really manufactured for use on women.
Graham Archer
But their complaint to the Medical Board went largely unheeded.
Dave Wright
We had to find out everything ourselves. The whole box and dice from woe to go. We got no assistance from the Medical Board at all. A couple of doctors agreed with us and gave us further information - but they were not prepared to go into court and point a finger or anything like that.
Graham Archer
Eventually, by themselves, they discovered something even more alarming about the drug that had been prescribed for Dorothy.
Dave Wright
Then we started to discover some awful things.
Graham Archer
And they were that - what?
Dave Wright
That the - well, some of the medication that was being given was highly suspect of causing what she had.
Graham Archer
Breast cancer?
Dave Wright
Mm.
Graham Archer
It was shattering news. The further frustration was that the Board refused to disclose the specialists’ answers to their complaint - and Dorothy's access to her own medical file was made as awkward as possible.
Dave Wright
Yes, you can have a look at them, you may not photostat copy them, you're not to have anybody with you - which meant that I could not go in with Dorothy while she perused it, and of course by this time, with a death sentence over her, she was a very, very upset lady.
Graham Archer
So no photocopying, no written notes, no-one could accompany her? And were they also going to charge her a consultation fee for doing it?
Dave Wright
Yes, yes. She had to make an appointment and pay a consultation fee to have a look at her own records.
Graham Archer
How accountable and transparent is that process?
Dave Wright
Like a brick wall painted black. There's no - not at all.
Graham Archer
Throughout her struggle for answers, Dorothy's condition deteriorated.
Dave Wright
It's a hell of a thing.
Graham Archer
She sounded like a brave woman.
I won't take you through that but she does sound
like she, she knew her own mind anyway. After three years, the Registrar of the
Board at the time, David Wilde, gave the matter just seven lines, finishing
with " That the matters you've complained about have both been thoroughly
investigated and that the Committee is unable to take these matters any
further." So that was the brush off?
Dave Wright
That's right. That was it, when they said – right - well that's it, that's as much as you're going to get.
Graham Archer
No explanation was provided. Just a few months later, Dorothy died.
Dave Wright
She was a tough cookie - a lovely lady.
Graham Archer
And to our knowledge, there have been no steps taken to raise public awareness of the potential health risks associated with the drug. You lost a wife, it doesn't sound like they lost a wink of sleep over it.
Dave Wright
No, I wouldn’t think it bothered them at all.
Graham Archer
And there are many more examples. Last year we revealed the appalling case of Dr Steven Rabone, accused of infecting his own unsuspecting patients with potentially fatal Hepatitis C, by injecting their painkillers and then turning the contaminated needles on them.
Reporter
[File tape – on the street] No need to run away sir, we just want to ask you some questions about your drug addiction and some patients who have complained that you gave them Hepatitis C by sharing needles with them sir.
Graham Archer
He was actually playing a kind of game of Russian Roulette? And pointing the gun at his patients?
Tony (victim of Hep C)
Well certainly everything's been pretty reckless, there's no doubt about that.
Graham Archer
When the shattered patients like Tony - now over a dozen of them, approached the Medical Board for their records on Dr Rabone, the watchdog showed its true pedigree - fighting tooth and claw to deny access to the vital information.
Peter Humphries
Having got an order from the Magistrates Court that they produce these documents, the Medical Board then appealed to a single judge in the Supreme Court - and from that judge to the Full Court - to resist the disclosure of this history.
Graham Archer
Peter Humphries from Duncan, Basheer and Hannon represents the victims - and is shocked by what he's encountered.
Peter Humphries
Well it sounds emotive- but I think it's disgraceful.
Graham Archer
It was appealed by the Board to the Supreme Court. It was appealed to the Full Bench of the Supreme Court.
Professor Kalucy
I think we better stop this.
Graham Archer
Dr Rabone's long history of drug abuse was well known to the Medical Board long before this outrage occurred. In fact the President of the Board at the time - Professor Ross Kalucy was overseeing Rabone's fitness to practice - though you wouldn't know that by asking him.
Graham Archer
A doctor who was displaying abhorrent behaviour - maybe putting his patients at risk?
Professor Kalucy
Doctors displaying abhorrent behaviour would be picked up like that [clicks fingers].
Graham Archer
Well, what about the case of Dr Steven Rabone for instance?
Professor Kalucy
I don't know about that.
Graham Archer
I think you would.
Professor Kalucy
No I don't.
Graham Archer
I mean, you were the President of the Board when that case went through.
Professor Kalucy
Don't know.
Graham Archer
Despite Rabone's conduct, the Board allowed him to leave the State and continue practising interstate.
Peter Humprhies
They could not give Rabone a certificate to practise medicine in New South Wales without a certificate of good-standing from the South Australian Medical Board.
Graham Archer
And?
Peter Humphries
And they provided it.
Graham Archer
The cost? $10. Here's the bill - signed by the Board's long standing registrar, David Wilde. Even though they were prosecuting?
Peter Humphries
Yes.
Graham Archer
Even though they knew that he'd been suspended in the past? He breached his conditions and now they were prosecuting him? They gave him the all-clear?
Peter Humphries
Yes.
Graham Archer
What do you make of that?
Peter Humphries
There's no sensible conclusion you can draw to that.
Graham Archer
But every dog has its day - and partly due to our exposure and the lobbying of others, the Board is currently under the gaze of their own watchdog, the Parliamentary Review Committee - and the hackles are up - as Chair Bob Sneath made clear last Thursday.
Bob Sneath
[At sitting of the Parliamentary Committee addressing members of the Medical Board] The committee is concerned about the answers provided by the Board to questions in correspondence of the 3rd March 2005. In fact, some of the questions the committee considered have not been answered at all. Failure to answer questions is considered a very serious matter and the committee seeks your cooperation in providing the information that it requires to fulfil its inquiry and report to the Legislative Council.
Graham Archer
And it's been revealed that while the Board has provided little joy to aggrieved patients, they've been very generous with the good cheer amongst themselves, shouting themselves thousands of dollars worth of expensive wine and spending vast sums on conferences.
Dave Wright
It wouldn't surprise me in the least. It's a very elite club.
Graham Archer
But it gets more serious. The long-serving former Board Registrar, David Wilde, the nemesis of so many disillusioned complainants has been caught pocketing the Board's money.
Dave Wright
I could believe that.
Graham Archer
And what did the Board do? They asked him to pay back the takings - just a few thousand - and no-one need be the wiser.
Dave Wright
If you did that to any other organisation, they'd have you in court. So why didn't they do this time?
Graham Archer
And with full entitlements, Mr Wilde quietly resigned, only to then be appointed to the Legal Practitioner's Conduct Board. Sadly, none of this should be much of a surprise in a State where for instance - senior police can forget to blood test after a fatal hit and run - where you can get a $500 bond for driving off a cliff killing two of your children - where you can spend ten years in jail based on bruises which when put under the microscope, the two senior pathologists responsible now admit they couldn't see. Or where two years after making a complaint to the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board, you receive this phone message:
I'm ringing from the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board. I'm ringing on behalf of [name deleted]. She hasn't as yet looked at the file, it's an issue she still needs to do and she'll be in touch as soon as she can, um, probably won't be in the near future and it'll be via letter probably, rather than - by telephone. Thank you. Bye bye.
That was one year ago and nothing since. It's a familiar theme - with the Health Minister Lea Stevens promising twelve months ago to investigate the Medical Board's handling of the Rabone case - but we've heard nothing. Similar hollow promises came from the Opposition. What can you offer to people who are absolute innocent victims of this?
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 possibly can get.
Graham Archer
It sounds like the Parliamentary Committee mean business with their inquiry into whether the Medical Board put personal and professional interests ahead of the public interest. As a watchdog of the quality of the profession protecting the public how would you rate them?
Dave Wright
Zero. Minus zero even.
The materials on this site are the copyright of Networked Knowledge. Copyright Notice
The Networked Knowledge web site is hosted and maintained by Howstat Computing Services as a community service. Enquiries to webmaster@howstat.com