Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Overseas trained doctors are often popular and respected in regional and rural areas, particularly in Queensland. The registration and accreditation of overseas trained doctors is the responsibility of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. This came about following the COAG agreement of 2006. Overseas trained doctors are assessed to demonstrate they have the capacity to practise medicine at a level equivalent to that of Australian graduates. There are a couple of pathways. There is a generic pathway that they can undertake and there is a specialist pathway. Whilst overseas trained doctors are working towards full registration on their pathways they receive conditional registration. They are also required to work in an area of need during this time, and to achieve these positions they must satisfy a pre-employment interview by their employer and an assessment by the relevant specialist college.

Many overseas trained doctors, as I said, work in areas where there is a workforce shortage. In fact, the Gillard government is taking big steps with respect to this. The government has implemented a multipronged approach, providing $134.4 million in the 2009-10 budget for the Rural Health Workforce Strategy, which targets communities most in need by ensuring greater incentives for doctors to work in those isolated communities. We also announced a $632 million package in March 2010 to deliver an extra 5,500 new general practitioners, 680 specialist places and 5,400 junior doctor training places in general practice over the next 10 years. Fifty per cent of new GP training places will be in regional and rural areas.

I have been critical of the practice undertaken by the Medical Board with respect to a particular incident in my electorate, which is the Brisbane Valley, not the Lockyer Valley. There is a very popular GP practising in Lowood, Dr Rajendra Moodley. I have met with him on numerous occasions and I have also met with people in the Brisbane Valley, around Lowood and other areas, who support him. He is well respected. He trained in South Africa and worked there for about 12 years before coming to Australia and he has worked in the Lowood area for about six years. The situation in his case is that he is not on a 457 visa; he is on a 442 visa, a temporary residence visa. His moratorium completion date is 9 September 2014. I have been very critical of the way in which the Medical Board undertook the pre-employment structured clinical interview. I wish Dr Moodley well in his appeal to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. I think it will go a long way to assuaging people’s concern, should he be successful in that appeal.

The pre-employment structured clinical interview, in his case, was undertaken by three GPs from the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine. There is no audio tape, no video tape and no transcript. There are deficiencies in accountability and transparency. He was told that he had failed the interview, but there were no further particulars upon which his lawyers could undertake an appeal. As I understand it, he attacked the decision making during the tribunal proceedings and has had a stay of the decision. He is in a position where he can continue to practise and will not be deported unless, at the conclusion of this process, his registration is cancelled.

I have to say this: on this issue I have to be critical of the LNP, who have politicised this issue in my area. This is a legal process. They undertook a campaign in this regard and politicised this issue to campaign against me and the Labor member for Ipswich West on this issue. They undertook a meeting and they were critical of us. The state shadow health spokesperson, Mark McArdle, came there. More questions were asked of him, and I have to say that the LNP should be ashamed of themselves for the way they have politicised this issue. Dr Moodley should be supported and given affection, love and physical support, and people should stand with him in this regard, but to politicise a legal proceeding is the wrong way to go about it.

We can do better, and I believe the process should be done better and the medical boards should have a look at themselves, but I do not think that inquiry is necessary. I think that what we need to do is have some discussions with the Medical Board of Australia. There are a number of other allied health professional organisations as well. It is not just medicine. There are a number of other allied health professions: physiotherapy and others. The National Registration and Accreditation Scheme is predicated on a profession basis. It is based on the principle of protection of public health and safety. It is not a Commonwealth scheme; it is a national scheme led by the professions, who are responsible for determining the appropriate standard for health practitioners.

I do not want a situation where the federal minister for health or the state minister for health determines whether a physiotherapist or a doctor should remain in a place and have registration and accreditation. We have to have a rigorous peer-driven assessment mechanism. I think it is appropriate to have transparency and accountability, to use the words of the member for Maranoa. I am with him on that. They need to do better in that regard, and Dr Moodley—and anyone else—deserves, frankly, to have those interviews recorded or taped, to have a transcript available and to have detailed reasons for their failure or success provided. It is not happening. That is not good enough. There should be natural justice given. I would have thought it is very difficult in the circumstances for anyone who finds themselves in that position to then successfully appeal. That is where it comes about. There is a perception of a lack of justice in the methodology.

We are not going to change the fact that doctors need to be engaged in that peer-driven assessment. What we need to make sure of is that these bodies do it better. That is what I think we need to put pressure on them to do. I do not want a situation where the medical board is not responsible for determining whether or not an application for registration takes place; I think that is the appropriate place to do it. But the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council consists of the health ministers from all the jurisdictions, including the Commonwealth, and has the capacity under the national law to give directions to the national agency or national board in regard to relevant policies, processes or procedures, and I think that is where a remedy lies. I think we need to have some advice and consultation and speak to these boards about the way they are conducting it. It is now important that we get fairness.

Directions may be provided by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council only if ministers believe that:

… the accreditation standard will have a substantive and negative impact on the recruitment or supply of health practitioners.

It is a bit rich for the LNP, who have failed with respect to regional and rural health, to protest. The coalition are the ones who capped GP training places, and they are not the ones who are providing the incentives. We are the ones who are training more doctors, nurses and other health professionals. We are the ones who have increased it, because the coalition simply failed. They often pose, preen and posture about their support for regional and rural Australia, but the fact is that they do not support it, whether in roads, health, infrastructure or primary health care. We are the ones who are providing the funding for primary health care in those regional and rural areas, and you can see it. I have written heaps of letters of support for doctors who are providing services in the Brisbane Valley and even in the Lockyer Valley, in the seat of Wright, because I think it is important.

Dr Moodley, as I said, is a temporary resident doctor who is subject to section 19AB of the Health Insurance Act. As I said—and I want constituents in my electorate to know this—under section 19AB of the act, overseas trained doctors wanting to access Medicare benefit arrangements are required to work in a district of workforce shortage, and that is where he is working. I thank Dr Paul Crowley of Lowood Medical Centre for his support for Dr Moodley. No-one could have been a better mentor, supporter or friend to Dr Moodley than Dr Crowley. I wish Dr Moodley well. I hope for his sake and for the sake of the Brisbane Valley that we see his registration renewed and that doctors of his calibre and ilk continue to practise in the Somerset region. (Time expired)

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