In a radio interview, Knowles not only refused to guarantee immunity to doctors who spoke out, but issued a thinly veiled threat that doctors could be held legally liable for agreeing to take patients off lists. It was a chilling indication that the government may try to launch a witchhunt against doctors. I have seen a booking clerk's desk drawer full of Category 1 and 2 patients' forms that have not been registered on the waiting list. Doctors are being asked to recategorise patients and have refused, so some waiting list clerks just go ahead and do it anyway without telling the doctor. This has happened to me.
Doctors are right to distrust the government.
When similar revelations emerged two years ago, Knowles claimed that a new computerised system would track the rigging of lists. A patient who suffered a heart attack last year, and who is under the treatment in the Southern Health Care Network, told WSWS that worries about the standard of care he was receiving had worsened his condition. From the patient's point of view, if you don't know what category you are in, and you don't know what is happening to you, you tend to think it is your own bad luck about your treatment, and you become fatalistic. Going to a doctor is not like going to a shop and buying something. You believe that the doctor will do everything for you.