Collins Judith: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8097] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I will just carry on the discussion in relation to the quality assurance parts of the bill. My previous occupation was as a lawyer and I had something to do with quality assurance—sometimes the negative side and sometimes the positive side—in relation to law. 
I took particular interest in these parts of the bill when it was before the Health Committee and there are reasons for that. I have dealt with health practitioners from the legal point of view and I have dealt with hospitals in relation to the Privacy Act. I think that many of us will know as members of this House that if there is one general group of professions that have overreacted in the extreme to the requirements of the Privacy Act it has to be medical or health practitioners. In fact all sorts of obstacles were claimed under that Act and used as a way of not actually disclosing information. That is not to say however that the people I am talking about did so with malice but of course they were frightened of the Act. They were frightened of the provisions in it and they felt that if they did something wrong under the Act they would be severely punished. I dealt with many health practitioners—nurses doctors and so on—who genuinely believed they would be in dreadful trouble if they disclosed information to the families of patients but if they had actually done so it could have in many cases prevented suicides and all sorts of other tragedies. 
We are dealing with professionals who are not lawyers. They are people working under extreme stress and often under conditions where they have to make a decision in a split second. They do not have the luxury of going back mulling it over having a little consultation checking it out with all their friends colleagues and neighbours then perhaps deciding on a course of action. These people are at the coalface. From the doctors to the nurses to every sort of health practitioner in an emergency or hospital situation including the ambulance drivers all the people throughout this sphere are at the coalface. When they are told when they have quality performance reviews that they will be subject to prosecution or will go before their disciplinary body if they make mistakes if they reveal mistakes that is a bad thing. 
It is a bad thing not just for the health professionals. I have to say I do resent the Minister of Health’s implication that this side of the Committee is interested only in protecting health professionals and health practitioners. That is absolute nonsense. It is a bad thing for the public and it is a bad thing for patients when the people making life and death decisions about them are worried they will end up being prosecuted. Those people do not become nurses and doctors because they want to kill people; they become nurses and doctors because they want to help people. They do not just want to help them; they train to help them. They spend years and years of their lives dedicated to being the very best professionals that they can be. The last thing they want to do is to hurt people—quite the opposite. 
In fact what we are doing with this bill is dumbing down the health professionals. [ 
Interruption 
] I see that members on the other side are awake now. The health professionals have said: “Please don’t dumb us down. Please treat us as though we are professionals. Please give us some credit for wanting to be the very best in our areas and to do the very best for our patients the people who come to us because they want to be helped.” They are not there they say because they want to cause harm. Health professionals need to know that the people of New Zealand and this Parliament have confidence that they will do the very best they can. It is so important when we are debating a bill such as this and voting on it part by part that we acknowledge the work that the nurses of this country do the work that the doctors of this country do and the work that the other health professionals do.