The Dominion
December 15, 2002

Public trials for medical misconduct
by Leah Haines

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals facing misconduct charges will be tried in public and if found guilty named, Health Minister Annette King says.

The Health Practitioners Competency Bill, expected to be introduced in Parliament in February, brings most health workers - including doctors, nurses and psychologists - under a single disciplinary tribunal.

At present there are about 10 tribunals, each with its own disciplinary process. Some hearings are held in public, such as the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, and some behind closed doors.

The act would see the one tribunal hold hearings in the open and the public told who had been found guilty, on the health and disability commissioner's website.

"The bill aims to ensure transparency of registration and disciplinary processes, so the public can be assured (they) are fair and just and not subject to professional bias," Mrs King said.

The transparency of such disciplinary hearings has been an issue for years and has been particularly highlighted by two cases in the past three weeks.

Last month, The Dominion revealed that Prue Vincent, a top Wellington psychologist, had been fined for botching a six-year-long child sex-abuse investigation.

The Psychologists Board disciplined her in a private hearing and allowed her to continue practising. It confirmed it had no plans to publish her name in connection with the charges she faced.

Asked if that was of concern to her, Mrs King said: "The public has a right to know who is safe and competent to practise. That is the philosophy behind the (bill)."

This week, Rotorua obstetrician-gynaecologist Deryck Pilkington lost his bid for continued name suppression after being found guilty of conduct unbecoming for his part in the birth of a brain-damaged boy.

The Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal generally holds its hearings in public and the new disciplinary tribunal is based mainly on its methods.

However, under the Bill of Rights, health professionals have the right to seek interim name suppression.

Justice Laurenson, in naming Pilkington, said he supported the temporary suppression of the names of accused doctors.

He added: "If a medical practitioner has been found guilty of a serious error of judgement, such that it reflects adversely on his or her fitness to practise medicine, then, in my view, it follows that the public is entitled to know of it to enable an informed choice to be made."

In 1998, the Nurses Council was told off by the health and disability commissioner for deciding the fate of Lower Hutt midwife Jean O'Neil in private. Ms O'Neil faced four charges of professional misconduct for her care of a baby born brain-damaged who starved to death five weeks later.

Mrs King said that when the new act was working there would continue to be scope for courts to grant name suppression in some cases, under the Bill of Rights.

There would also be provision for hearings in private, usually when "very personal medical details of patients" were involved or if public interest was outweighed by private interest.