Roy Heather: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
Roy Heather: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8161] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ) 
: 
 In speaking to Part 7 I would like to start at newclause 166A. The select committee was very pleased to have this included because it is very important that this legislation is reviewed after 3 years. There have been grave concerns with it as members have heard through the periods of this debate and this review is paramount. The previous speaker referred to the dog’s breakfast and I can tell members where that came from. The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Ian Powell’s group called this “an ambitious dog’s breakfast”. They did. Ian Powell called it an ambitious dog’s breakfast. He said: “Until now along with the NZMA the ASMS was hopeful that the bill would be sufficiently improved through the select committee process so that it was as good as the MPA which it was intended to replace.” 
All I can say to Ian Powell is that we tried. We did our best. We tried to deal with the scopes of practice despite the fact that they are untried and untested in this country and have failed in British Columbia. But no we are going to have them here because we are cutting edge we are world leaders here! We tried to address the quality assurance activities and had partial success I suppose but certainly they are not what they should be. We tried to deal with the huge ministerial powers with very little success at all. 
Ian Powell went on to state: “While some noticeable and useful improvements have been proposed by the select committee the revised bill remains significantly inferior to the Medical Practitioners Act.” My Supplementary Order Paper has several amendments to this part—to clauses 169 170 175 194 195 and 196—to try to extricate doctors from this bill. They are not the only group. Pita Paraone is going to tell us that the optometrists want to be out as well. 
Steve Chadwick 
: It is too painful. 
HEATHER ROY 
: No it is going to be much more painful for them to stay where they are because the legislation they have at present the Medical Practitioners Act is a far superior and modern piece of legislation that works very well. In the time that it has been in place quality assurance activities have improved significantly but that is not going to happen any longer. The protection will not be there for them when they have their quality assurance. The bill is going to discourage it and that will erode public safety. 
If we flick a little further through Part 7 to Subpart 2 “Transitional provisions” Mrs te Heuheu—I hope I have got the pronunciation right—was talking about those provisions. For some bodies there will be significant changes and I think in particular of the Pharmaceutical Society which is going to go out of existence completely. Pharmacists are actually very sad about that. The Pharmaceutical Society is over 100 years old and has been quite a tradition for pharmacists. I am told that because it is such a huge job it has already started to change the assets and all the bits and pieces that go with the Pharmaceutical Society into the Pharmaceutical Council which will be similar to the other registration bodies. 
It is interesting to see the Minister’s comments to these different groups in particular to doctors and pharmacists. We know already that Mrs King certainly does not favour elections because she does not think doctors are capable of doing the right thing and choosing the right people to represent them. It is interesting to note what she has been saying about pharmacists. Anybody who reads  
Pharmacy Today 
 might have seen a report on its front page a couple of weeks ago in which the Minister states that she does not know how pharmacists can call themselves health professionals when they process photographs and sell gifts. Apparently they are not health professionals any longer. Fancy that! Obviously the Minister’s history is a bit lacking because if she knew anything at all about pharmacists she would know that significant development in processing photographs was made by chemists themselves. That is where it started and that is why every chemist shop in the country sends off films that people take in to have their photographs printed. [ 
Interruption 
] It is part of the bill—it is the role of pharmacists. It is sad to see a Minister of Health who has such contempt for the medical profession for pharmacists and probably for other health professionals as well—except I suspect dental nurses whom she is probably still very fond of. It is a very sad day.