Letters
Ethics
Volume 187 - Issue 5

Late-term abortion: what can be learned from Royal Women’s Hospital v Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria?

Author:  Paul Gerber

Med J Aust 2007; 187 (5): 317-318. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01260.x
Published online: 3 September 2007
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In reply: Flynn points to some minor technical differences in my historical recount of the handling, by the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria, of the complaint against the medical specialists involved in a late-term abortion.1 None requires a reply, save for Flynn’s assertion that “the Board does not currently have the power to conciliate disputes or conduct mediations”.

The Board does not require statutory power to approach a hospital in a conciliatory manner so as to explore whether an impasse, involving confidentiality, can be resolved without recourse to litigation. Was the Board’s only remedy to raid the hospital, trawling for evidence to decide whether there were grounds for the possible suspension or cancellation of registration of the doctors involved in the complaint?

We both agree that the relevant legislation mandated the Board, on the material before it, to investigate the charge of serious professional misconduct. Where we disagree is that, having overruled its own subcommittee’s recommendation that the matter be closed, the Board failed (I maintain) in its statutory duty to promptly institute a formal hearing. Had the various specialists been subpoenaed, this would have cleared them of professional misconduct, thereby preventing the considerable and unnecessary stress to these witnesses over a period of 5 years.

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