From a reader in Melbourne Australia
Re: ‘Unregistered Health Practitioners Regulations’ – specifically, whether existing protections for consumers who use the services of unregistered health practitioners are adequate and if further public protection measures are required.
Dear Editor,
I think it is apparent that there is a definite need for new regulations to protect consumers, from both the consumer’s point of view and also, in the long term, to protect the reputations of the various health professional organisations and the quality of healthcare their members provide.
From the point of view of a consumer (I, along with others, campaigned for the Victorian State Government 2005 ‘Inquiry into Recovered Memory Therapy’ and have had experience with complaining to various bodies about the conduct of various therapists), I would say my major concerns are:
- The need for there to be a powerful independent authority with regards to complaints handling since, in my experience, industry bodies can have a natural tendency to ‘look after their own’ rather than the consumer.
- The need for there to be a clear, well publicised path via which people can address their complaints. (Perhaps an umbrella health complaints organisation which then acts or directs complaints to appropriate responsible bodies and oversees the process to ensure it works well. It would be good to have one place that is able to see and act on complaints made to the various organizations about each rogue practitioner).
It does take a bit of nerve to decide to make an official complaint. Often complaints can be made to bodies that seemingly have little power to address complaints adequately (e.g. they won’t/can’t give any feedback, they can’t/won’t punish/stop the rogue practitioner, they can’t/won’t do anything if the complaint is not made by a patient, they are the wrong body to complain to) and then the complainer looks for other bodies/individuals to complain to. Often it takes a long time for complaints to be processed and then be turned away, so the complainer needs to be dogged in their pursuit of a complaint and not be discouraged and worn down.
- The ability of authorities to act against rogue practitioners and stop them from practicing, fine, caution, punish them etc. If complaints are made and found to be valid, the relevant authorities need to have the ability to act in a powerful way to stop and deter rogues.
- The ability of family members/concerned others to make complaints, not just the patient.
Often the problem is that the patient is in a kind of co-dependant relationship with the practitioner and wants to believe that what is being done is worthwhile (e.g. with bogus cancer treatments, some therapy cases such as ‘recovered memories’ and ‘multiple personality disorder’). Also, what of patients who are mentally impaired, aged, young, unconscious or particularly vulnerable in other ways? If the practitioner has snared such a patient in his/her web, there is little that can be done if the vulnerable patient is willing/blinded/ignorant. Plus, consider situations such as in hospitals where other employees are alarmed by the conduct of a workmate.
- There is an issue with terminology and semantics – and that is likely to be ongoing from what I have experienced. For example, the term ‘unregistered practitioner’ is seen as a negative/discriminatory one by some practitioners. Personally I don’t know why a reputable practitioner would resist registration/license with a respected body/authority and so I would regard an unregistered/unlicensed one with suspicion and caution. However, perhaps there may be examples I am not aware of (I believe some groups are having problems actually obtaining accreditation, so their members remain unregistered – for instance health practitioners who work with heart/lung transplant patients) – in which case a less negative term like ‘independent’ could be used. Though I think that should only be done if there is a valid ongoing reason for the person to be unregistered/independent as the consumer needs to know some negative/’treat with caution’ signs to look out for when choosing a practitioner.
Kind regards,
Concerned Reader
Melbourne
