Forty or fifty years ago, someone gave us this advice, which we’ve always remembered – “If you want to know what someone is like, get them to write something down.” And with modern technology doing this is so easy – just send them an email.
One of our readers reports that, in a face-to-face consultation with a doctor, the doctor left something of great importance out, which he was only told about by another doctor some 17 months later, by which time he could have been quite badly affected, although luckily, it seems, he wasn’t. And when he made a complaint about this to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, how did he get on?
He was told, “It’s all your fault! The doctor says that he told you to take not the slightest notice of what he’d told you, and, that, as soon as you left your consultation with him you should have sought the opinion of others. You have no basis for a complaint.”
(We’re always saying Sue Dawson and her people are geniuses at coming up with excuses for doctors!)
And when the NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner, Sue Dawson, was emailed reporting this, pointing out how stupid it was, the email wasn’t even acknowledged, let alone responded to.
Another of our readers reports that, when he complained, that, amongst other things, a doctor hadn’t responded to one of his emails, one of the HCCC people responded with, “It’s all your fault! The doctor didn’t get your email because you used the wrong email address. You should have used the email address available from the Australian Health Practioner Regulation Agency. (AHPRA.) You have no basis for a complaint!” But when AHPRA was emailed about this, they advised, firstly, that they didn’t have an email address for the doctor, and secondly, that they had no idea what the HCCC person was talking about.
And when the NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner, Sue Dawson, was emailed reporting this, with a copy to the HCCC person concerned, the email wasn’t even acknowledged by either of them, let alone responded to.
So now we know what Sue Dawson is like, what happens next? It would seem that, at least, while Gladys Berejiklian remains the NSW Premier and Brad Hazzard remains the NSW Minister for Health, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
