News Review
DOCTORS ARE HUMAN TOO
Health , relativ die : the big is
Was 2017 a vintage year for Australian healthcare , or was it beset with the usual of trials and tribulations ? Australian Doctor looks back on a fascinating 12 months .
Dr Geoffrey Toogood .
Sussan Ley .
No , Minister REMEMBER Sussan Ley , our former federal Minister for Health ?
The start of the year was highly turbulent for the one-time punk amid a raft of media stories about her parliamentary travel expenses that included high-cost private flights she flew herself .
It wasn ’ t the best look , especially at a time when she was preaching the need for patients and doctors to suffer the chills of the continued Medicare freeze .
Ms Ley , who as a young woman added an ‘ s ’ to her first name after a numerologist told her she would lead a more interesting life , resigned as minister in January , later giving an emotional farewell address to Parliament where she insisted her flights were all within the rules .
While her actions were seen to have failed the ‘ pub test ’, she did receive backing from a Department of Finance investigation , which found that the only rule she breached was when she used a government-funded car to go from her hotel to an apartment , a trip that lasted five minutes .
When the history of Australian health ministers is written , Ms Ley will go down as the one who officially ditched the GP copayment and once wore a menacing rubber glove for a front page cover feature in The Australian under the headline ‘ The minister will see you now ’.
It was , however , all overshadowed by the way in which her career crashed to Earth .
Just not Crickitt More than seven years after killing his wife by injecting her with a lethal dose of insulin , Sydney GP Dr Brian Kenneth Crickitt was sentenced to a minimum 20 years in prison .
Dr Crickitt , who denied the murder charge , had Googled the words ‘ insulin ’ and ‘ fatal ’ a few days before his wife died . He then used one his elderly patient ’ s insulin prescriptions to obtain the drug from a local pharmacist .
Codeine wars and a guilded rage The TGA decision to ban over-the-counter codeine was supposed to end the long-running argument between doctors and pharmacists about the damage the drug was inflicting . Instead , it led to one of the biggest public stoushes of the year .
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia cranked up its V8 lobbying machine and went to work on state and territory health ministers to create special ‘ exceptions ’ to the TGA ’ s up-scheduling that would ensure the continued sale of codeine for patients with acute pain .
Doctors ’ groups accused the guild of putting profits before patients , pointing out that the actual codeine doses available OTC were at sub-therapeutic levels , so what they were flogging was largely useless for its intended purpose anyway .
But logic and politics mix like oil and water . In the background , former federal minister Santo Santoro was recruited by the guild as a lobbyist to spread its message in the corridors of power .
Within months , things started to shift in ways that must have left doctors ’ groups a little breathless , when state and territory health ministers signed a letter to the federal health minister expressing concern about the looming up-scheduling .
Bizarrely , even Tony Abbott took a break from his man-made global warming studies to share his views on the topic .
At the time of writing , the guild ’ s Christmas wish still appears elusive ; a public declaration by the states to introduce the requested exemptions to the TGA ’ s ruling is yet to happen .
Hero of the year He didn ’ t cure cancer , but Dr Richard Zhu achieved a major medical breakthrough in 2017 .
Frustrated by the lack of information for GPs and patients , the unassuming Sydney doctor created a website listing gap fees for Australian specialists .
It was simple , unprecedented — and quickly became controversial .
Dr Zhu had been making calls to specialist clinics across the country between his own patient consults to gather details of initial consultation costs .
When his work hit the national media , he was described as a “ divisive lone wolf ” by one specialist critic .
But he was supported by patient groups and other doctors , and the not-for-profit website has turned out to be a winner , gaining more than 800,000 hits since its launch in March .
Big issue of the year : doctors ’ health 2017 will be remembered as the year when doctors ’ mental health finally became a priority issue for the medical profession .
It was forced into the spotlight in March following revelations that four doctors had ended their own lives over the summer .
Among them was 29-year-old Dr Chloe Abbott , a junior medical officer at St Vincent ’ s Hospital in Sydney and Dr Andrew Bryant , a senior gastroenterologist based in Queensland .
Vowing that no more doctors should suf-
6 | Australian Doctor | 15 December 2017 www . australiandoctor . com . au