Top doctor backs inquiry into AHPRA complaints system

The ex-chief of the Australian Medical Association has backed an inquiry into the complaints system for doctors, claiming it is leading practitioners like Dr Charlie Teo to be unjustly suspended and even to suicide.

The former head of the Australian Medical Association has called for a royal commission into the “nightmare system” of handling complaints against doctors.

“It’s a system full of bureaucratic red tape that leads to suicides without a doubt,” Dr Mukesh Haikerwal told the Sunday Telegraph.

“Not only because of being cited, struck off and suspended and it gets all too hard, but also because some doctors are cited for commercial reasons, some for vindictive reasons, there’s a whole catalogue of reasons,” he said.

“You get summarily suspended and if you’ve done something hideous or there is a problem then you understand that, but often you don’t know who has made the complaint or what the complaint is even about.

“So how are you supposed to justify your existence and your professionalism and your safety? And then you go into this parking lot while they try to sort it out.”

Dr Mukesh Haikerwal has spoken out about the ‘nightmare’ system of complaints. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

The Melbourne-based doctor who headed the AMA from 2005 to 2007, said he heard daily stories of doctors frustrated and damaged by the complaint and investigation process and knew of at least three recent suicides.

He is one of multiple doctors from a variety of fields of medicine from NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia calling for an Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) overhaul.

Australian doctors are calling for an overhaul of the complaints system.

Many spoke out after learning of the restriction placed on Dr Charlie Teo by the Medical Council of NSW, which comes under the umbrella of AHPRA.

The complaints came from other surgeons about his last-chance operations on patients with “inoperable” conditions.

Both state and federal health members have refused to comment on the issues.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard’s spokeswoman said it was inappropriate for him to comment, while representatives of Federal Minister Mark Butler did not respond to a series of questions this week.

It comes as brain surgeon Charlie Teo remains suspended following complaints within the current AMA system. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Dr Haikerwal and his colleagues at AMA Victoria will present a list of 16 recommendations to the AMA National Federal Council in their call for a royal commission, including “a presumption of innocence” in investigations of all practitioners.

They are also called for all investigations to be completed within six months, except in exceptional circumstances.

They also want any notification “deemed vexatious” to be “urgently examined by the Review Committee and if considered to be so, then the complainant formally sanctioned”.

The doctors are also demanding that the practitioner under investigation be given the right to be “personally present and to be legally represented”

“They, or their legal representative, must have the full and unfettered right to support their case.”