Blue Jackie: Veterinarians Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Blue Jackie: Veterinarians Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:963] 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I would like to make some concluding comments about the Veterinarians Bill. Earlier today I picked up a marvellous document written by the Veterinary Council of New Zealand dated March 2005 which has been very informative. The council has made some very good comments about why we need this bill and I would like to go over those comments. 
The council feels it needs to have the ability to assess the competency of a veterinarian and that is absolutely as it should be. But I would like to comment about competency in relation to the complaints assessment committees which have very wide-ranging powers. 
It is interesting that the competency clause of this bill is very similar to the competency clause in the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act which I mentioned earlier. However in the 1970s the medical community had to be dragged kicking and screaming through change. We had the Cartwright inquiry where people had to really question their practices question what they were doing and then move on. Human beings naturally hate change and the medical community undertook that change. It took time but it certainly did it. I would hope that the veterinary establishment can move much more quickly through change and that it will not have to go through the pain and anguish the medical community went through. 
As far as complaints assessment committees are concerned I have actually supported a number of colleagues undergoing review through tribunal hearings and it is a very very stressful process. I would urge—I do not think there is anything of the sort in this bill—that there be some compassion and support for those vets undergoing a hearing by a complaints assessment committee. 
From my experience of supporting colleagues who have gone through this process I think that there is humanity and empathy within the Medical Council. I think the council has done an extremely good job. To review one’s peers and question their competency is a difficult situation. It is basically a doctor’s worst nightmare. It is such a litigious situation in New Zealand—and it is becoming more and more so which is not a bad thing; patients do have the right to question and examine—that it is very difficult for doctors to go through this process. So I would urge that there be some sort of empathy support system for those vets.  
The next point the Veterinary Council makes is that this bill gives it flexibility in terms of accepting people for registration in New Zealand and in deciding what type of registration its members will work under. As I mentioned before this is very important because we have a workforce issue and we have to be able to accept overseas vets of a similar training. We have to look out for emergency situations such as foot-and-mouth. There needs to be flexibility so we can use other personnel who may not be fully qualified vets. Certainly it could be just like a pandemic flu situation where we may have to call on the retired medical workforce people from other professions such as Plunket or people who could be trained up quite quickly to help look after the sick in their homes because the whole pattern of primary health care will change when we have the flu pandemic. 
The Veterinary Council recognises this factor and has alluded to it in its document  
Veterinary Council of New Zealand Newsbrief 
 dated March 2005. The council recognises that it needs a greater measure of self-regulation: “[This] will include fee setting the ability to prescribe the minimum standards for registration and ongoing registration—this would include things such as fitness to practise statements and possibly required continuing education if that was seen to be a particular issue needing attention.” 
I would like to talk about fee setting because my colleagues have already alluded to the fact that they see fee setting as no more than just another Labour tax grab. Yes we have to agree that that is the case. It is more money. Although the vets want self-regulation they do need to be checked. There need to be some checks and balances. It is like any regulation—there needs to be some balance and we have to wonder where that balance will come from. 
As members know from my previous speeches I am very concerned about our workforce issues. Earlier this year I wrote an article in the  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 on breast-cancer screening in New Zealand. I am very concerned about workforce issues—there are a good couple of paragraphs on it in that article.