Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister update the House on the progress made in the development of a national medical registration scheme? Have state based registration schemes led to problems in the past? How might this new scheme ensure that doctors practising in my electorate are appropriately qualified?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I know how concerned he has been about ineptitude by doctors registered by the Queensland Medical Registration Board. In July, at the Council of Australian Governments meeting, the Prime Minister and the premiers agreed to establish a single national body to register health professionals for practice here in Australia. The precise model for this national health registration board will be finalised by July next year and the new national health registration scheme will be operational by July 2008.

A national health registration scheme is necessary to allow competent doctors to practise anywhere in Australia, and it is also necessary to ensure that the doctors practising anywhere in Australia are in fact competent. In Queensland in particular, as the member for Hinkler knows only too well, the state Medical Registration Board has sometimes failed to check doctors’ credentials, with disastrous results for patients, such as occurred in Bundaberg, where some 13 deaths have been attributed to botched operations performed by an incompetent doctor. In the notorious Dr Death case, the Queensland board did not check for outstanding negligence claims and did not ensure that Dr Patel was working under supervision, as he was supposed to be working.

I am confident that the national health registration board will not repeat these mistakes. But no registration system is proof against an institutional culture of coercion and intimidation, such as has existed in Queensland Health. When Dr Patel was first exposed in parliament, the Bundaberg Health Service appointed by the Queensland government not only wrote a letter of support to Dr Patel but began a witch-hunt against whistleblowers. The person who seconded the motion to gag whistleblowers and to try to prevent further revelations in parliament is now the Labor Party’s candidate for Bundaberg in the state election. If Premier Beattie were serious about fixing problems in Queensland Health, he would disendorse this candidate, who is part of the Dr Death cover-up scandal. Mr Speaker, I table documents relevant to the case.