ABLEnews Extra

                    "Disgraceful Records"

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Sydney, Nov 18, AAP--The church, the law, and medicine "all have
disgraceful records" of sexual exploitation or other abuses, a
high-profile Sydney psychiatrist told a seminar here on sexual
exploitation by health professionals.

But senior psychiatrist Dr. John Ellard told the seminar, organised by
the New South Wales branch of the Australian Plaintiff Lawyers
Association, that it was his profession [that was] doing its utmost to
clean up the problem.
   
"Psychiatrists are most in the news these days--or we were until
recently when the clergy overtook us--but the literature shows that we
are no more at fault than any other branch of the medical profession,"
Dr. Ellard said.

"The reason for our prominence is that we are the group of
professionals doing most about what goes on," he told the seminar last
night in a talk on the role of professional organisations.
   
Dr. Ellard said he was asked to name the players, the processes, and
institutions which brought offending doctors to justice.
   
He said there was parliament which made the laws, the legal
profession, health departments, royal commissions, codes of ethics,
professional organisations, and medical boards.
   
The most recent royal commission was into Chelmsford Hospital in
Sydney, where patients died after being subjected to deep sleep
therapy, and Townsville's Ward 10B. Investigations of patient suicides
at the ward revealed widespread physical and verbal abuse of patients
and the use of deep sleep therapy.

But Dr. Ellard said during Chelmsford and Ward 10B, health departments
did very little "and what they did was useless."

He told the seminar this was likely to get worse because society did
not have departments of health but "departments of health economics."

"And it is uncommon, if not rare, to discover anyone in the Health
Department who knows anything about health."
   
Dr. Ellard said the Medical Board of NSW did nothing effective during
the Chelmsford defence.
   
"The Medical Board of Queensland said of the events in Ward 10B that
they could see no grounds for the laying of criminal charges and that
was the end of it."
   
He said the Church of Scientology was an important player in both
cases, "starting more action than all the boards, departments and
coronial inquiries had done."
   
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists had
spent about $100,000 trying to expel one of its fellows but had been
frustrated by the courts every time.
   
"If one puts aside the medical tribunals, which I believe to be
equivalent to a district court, then generally the courts are of
little use," he said.
   
"They are very expensive to use and their principal activity in recent
years has been to put back into the medical profession those whom the
profession has thrown out."

As to the effectiveness of deregistration, Dr. Ellard said for GPs it
was difficult for them to continue to practise but psychiatrists could
still call themselves therapists or counsellors.
   
"Since the term counsellor is so nebulous as to be indefinable; there
seems to be no solution to this particular problem," although he said
the patient could not claim under Medicare.
   
Richard Ottley, a lawyer who defends doctors in sexual misconduct
cases, said for them to have a patient take action or make a complaint
was one of life's most stressful experiences.
   
He told the seminar of a case where a psychiatrist had a complaint
lodged against him by a patient who alleged she and the doctor had an
affair.
   
"The doctor concerned tragically killed his wife and children before
killing himself in a murder/suicide," Mr. Ottley said.
   
"Of course, there may have been other significant factors contributing
to this tragic sequence of events, but I recall how stressful it was
for him when his wife used to receive phone calls from the
complainant," he said.

Dr. Megan Kearney of the NSW Medical Defence, told the seminar her
organisation had no interest in indemnifying doctors who might find
themselves the defendants in civil claims by patients alleging sexual
misconduct.
   
"Any compensation would have to come from the doctor's own pocket,"
she said.

   AAP 18/11/94

   New Zealand Press Association

CURE Comment: "Departments of health economics" are almost always
               morally bankrupt.

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