Fwd: QLD HEALTH QUALITY COMPLAINTS COMMISSION

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And we are supposed to trust the regulators to ensure that dangerous doctors are no longer allowed to practice but instead, it seems that the regulators may be working hand in glove with these same dangerous doctors. The entire system is apparently to be broken.http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/ill-practice-under-the-microscope/story-e6frerdf-1226308876514 Ill-practice under the microscopeby: Des Houghton From: The Courier-Mail March 24, 2012 10:16AM SHOCKED: Jo Barber says a doctor turned off a woman's ventilator while whe was still conscious. Picture: Marshall Source: The Courier-MailQUEENSLAND'S leading medical investigator has hit the incoming LNP government with its first major crisis by unveiling startling allegations against doctors.Former police officer Jo Barber goes much further, accusing some watchdog agencies of failing to protect patients against medical incompetence and recklessness.Barber, a Queensland Health employee, this week turned official whistleblower and gave the Crime and Misconduct Commission the name of the Gold Coast doctor who allegedly turned off the oxygen to a gravely ill woman who nurses said was still conscious.They gave evidence the woman died in a distressed state even though she had explicitly asked for time to say goodbye to her family and accept her fate.The doctor is still practising despite three "significant" complaints against him brought by fellow doctors and corroborated by the nurses.The CMC has begun an investigation.Barber said the same Gold Coast doctor was accused by his colleagues of callous disregard for another elderly woman, who died when her ventilator was switched off after she received what was considered by his peers to be an incorrect drug dose.Another allegation against the doctor concerned the mistreatment of a patient with a brain shunt."That patient's brain shunt was deliberately shut off by Dr (name withheld) during a night shift to hasten the patient's death," Barber wrote."The next day, the doctor on duty realised the shunt had been shut and reopened it."The patient subsequently recovered from his illness and was later released from hospital."He lived."Barber tells me the families of the dead women were not told how their loved ones died and still did not know.She says she was shocked to discover serious allegations languishing in the files when she took over investigations at the Queensland Medical Board in 2009.She had worked previously as a police officer and as the highly successful manager of fraud investigations at WorkCover, recovering millions of dollars on an annual basis.Barber says she has urged the medical board to invoke powers it had to suspend the doctor immediately and refer him to police."One of my superiors laughed at me and said: 'The board does not refer things to the police'," she says.When the hospital attempted to stifle the investigation, and blocked nurses from speaking, she says she suggested the board seek search warrants to seize doctors' records."They told me: 'Are you serious? It's not going to happen. We don't have the funding to do that'," she says.In her role as chief investigator at the medical board, Barber was a delegate on the Health Quality Complaints Commission.She lost faith in it when she found it was reluctant to share information with other agencies.Nor was it willing to commit to exhaustive investigations.She discovered by accident that a doctor she was investigating had eight complaints made against him to the HQCC.But the commission failed to notify the medical board."The agencies distrusted each other and there was infighting," Barber says.The medical board's functions were taken over in 2010 by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.Barber has sought whistleblower protection after contacting hospital campaigner Rob Messenger, the independent Member for Burnett. ( MESSENGER LOST HIS SEAT IN ELECTION ON SATURDAY )Keen to follow up cases of malpractice, Barber joined Queensland Health's Ethical Standards Unit.She quickly learned its prime function seemed to be to do everything possible to protect health ministers from political embarrassment. And she believes incompetent doctors are still operating because watchdog agencies are largely ineffective."It's so easy for doctors to hide their errors," Barber says."Doctors learn to never write anything down they can be hanged for later."Queensland Health claims it has a policy of openness and transparency but it is simply not true."If they can hide something, they will hide it."While she remains a Queensland Health employee, Barber believes she will be made to suffer for speaking out."I'll never get a promotion," she says."My career is now at an end. There is nothing in it for me to go public - but someone has to."

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