Calls for medical misconduct register
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A former New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commissioner says the creation of a national register for health professionals will help increase transparency about the histories of doctors who want to practice in the state.
The commission is currently investigating complaints from 10 women about the conduct of former obstetrician Dr Roman Hasil.
Dr Hasil was reportedly rejected from practising in three other states, but still managed to secure employment at a private sexual health clinic in Sydney this year.
Professor Marilyn Walton says currently there are no provisions for the states to pass on information.
"The problem is, without national registration the state's aren't required to inform other states, but there is a requirement on doctors to be honest about previous activity and if they've got convictions or if they've got proven complaints or disciplinary matters they are required to tell the board that," she said.
It was not until Mr Hasil worked in New Zealand that complaints against him were fully investigated.
Earlier this year a New Zealand inquiry found Dr Hasil botched a quarter of female sterilisations and drank on the job when he was working there in 2005 and 2006.
Dr Hasil told New Zealand TV he was sorry.
"I'm a devastated, broken person, sick on heavy medication," he said.
Other complaints against the doctor were raised four years earlier, while Dr Hasil was working in Australia.
One of the complainants, Connie Scholl, says the Czech-born gynaecologist and obstetrician treated her roughly after he delivered her child in Lismore in northern New South Wales in 2002, but her story was not taken seriously until she spoke up again this year.
"It took about two years for me to heal properly and be able to go to the toilet, be able to have any sensation, normally," she said.
Robust system
But Professor Walton says New South Wales has a "very good, robust" discipline system.
"We are the only state that has information [on disciplinary cases] for anyone to look at in the public arena," she said.
She says there are three main bodies in NSW concerned with protecting the public.
"There is the Medical Board, which registers the doctor and they are responsible for maintaining the register there appropriate qualifications and fitness to practise, that's separates from the role of the Health Care Complaints Commission, which is to investigate complaints that are associated with hospitals and health care practitioners," she said.
"The Medical Board doesn't have the same those investigative powers that the complaints commission does, but the two bodies are required to talk to each other and ensure that whatever body takes the more serious view of the matters prevails."
"The Area Health Services have their own complaint mechanisms to deal with lower-level complaints."
Police say they have investigated complaints against Dr Hasil and passed their findings to the Health Care Complaints Commission.
Dr Hasil has now been suspended from practicing medicine in Australia.
