Kedgley Sue: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20342] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 As the Green Party has said on a number of occasions recently in this debate we too are delighted with most of the elements of this legislation. In particular we are delighted with the elimination of the requirement to prove fault before getting a medical misadventure claim accepted—to prove that the medical profession was at fault—or to prove that what had happened was rare severe and had happened in no more than 1 percent of cases. Those were quite ridiculous provisions. How could one prove that something happened in 1 percent of cases? That was quite ridiculous and could not be proven. The whole business of trying to prove fault on the part of the medical profession meant lengthy stressful processes. The medical profession was often very defensive because it was fearful it would have claims against it which created all sorts of tensions. Basically doctors saw every claim as a potential threat to their professional practice. So the system was very much in need of modernising and bringing into the 21st century and this legislation certainly does that. 
It is interesting to note when we talk about medical misadventure that what that is as the member from New Zealand First said is a euphemism for becoming ill as a result of going into hospital or going to a doctor. It is a terrible thing that some people have become ill or disabled and that some have died because they have sought treatment in the hospital service or by a doctor or a health professional. It is interesting that in the United States it is estimated that medical misadventure or illness caused as a result of treatment in the health professions is the fourth leading cause of illness and medical injury. That is extraordinary. 
It was extraordinary that a person who had been victimised by the health system in the sense that he or she had gone in to receive treatment but had become unwell or ill often as a result of picking up methicillin-resistant  
Staphylococcus aureus 
 or something like that could not get compensation and had to go through a lengthy process of trying to argue that the doctor was at fault and the injury was so rare that it happened in only 1 percent of cases. How unjust was it that someone made ill by the system could not get compensation? It seems to me that of all the people who become injured and deserve accident compensation those who have become ill as a result of being treated in the health profession have a greater case than almost any other person. Thank goodness we are now changing that inequity and making these long-needed changes in the way the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) deals with medical misadventure. It will be treated in the same way as other injuries and we welcome that very very much. 
We are very disappointed that our amendment in relation to treatment failure that is solely attributable to resource allocation decisions was defeated in the Committee of the whole House. We believe that the failure to treat a person for whatever reason should be considered to be a treatment injury and should be covered by ACC. It seems blatantly unfair and inequitable to us that if people develop an injury because they have not been treated properly by the medical profession they will be covered by accident compensation but if they become ill because their treatment is delayed because of resource shortages they will not be covered and will be excluded from compensation under the Act. That is yet another rather arbitrary and unfair provision. We regret it and we believe that in time it will be one of those issues that will need to be revisited. Just to give the House an example a patient who developed cancer because of treatment delays caused by the failure to diagnose his or her cancer would be covered by the legislation but if a patient developed cancer because appropriate treatment was unavailable because of for example a shortage of radiation therapists he or she would not be covered. That is blatantly unfair. 
The other thing that we believe remains unfair is the lump-sum compensation eligibility provisions. They sound very good. Under those provisions if people have an injury after 1 April 2002 they will be covered but in fact the fine print states that if the causative event the cause of the injury occurred before 1 April 2002 they will not be covered. How ridiculous is that? If a person was for example diagnosed with asbestosis after 1 April 2002 and it could be argued that it was caused 20 years ago—as it always will be with regard to those long-service injuries which take decades to develop—he or she would be excluded from treatment. Frankly one of the great inequities that remains in the accident compensation legislation is the fact that people who have what are called long-service injuries—injuries such as asbestosis etc. that develop over long periods of time through poisoning in the workplace—are discriminated against. This bill is a step in the right direction but that simple little provision is totally inequitable and the people who have those long-service injuries are still hugely discriminated against under it. It is a shame that this bill does not alleviate that anomaly as well as other anomalies. 
Let me return to the subject of acupuncture. At least we have been having during the debate on this bill a serious discussion about acupuncture. It is interesting that the World Health Organization recognises acupuncture as a successful treatment for about 40 different medical conditions yet in New Zealand it is not properly recognised. It does not have statutory recognition and regulation under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act. That is extraordinary. I heard Judy Turner from United Future say that if acupuncturists cannot get recognition soon the Minister should consider intervening. But frankly what we ought to have done and what the Green Party sought to do was to get acupuncturists regulated under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act. Yes there were disputes within the acupuncture profession. So too were there disputes within the osteopathy profession but osteopaths were regulated under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act and a mechanism was set up to sort out their differences. The very same thing should have happened with regard to acupuncturists and it did not. 
The Greens were very concerned about the rather odd way that acupuncture was being redefined in the middle of the debate on an accident compensation bill and that that could have had the effect of further delaying the desire of acupuncturists to become regulated to be given statutory recognition and to have a scope of practice—that it could in fact have resulted in two scopes of practice. However I am delighted that the chair of the Health Committee Steve Chadwick whom I praise for her chairing when the committee was considering this bill has assured me that acupuncturists are close to resolving the disputes that have plagued their profession—disputes that I say appalled the Health Committee. We were incredulous that such deep divisions were apparent in a profession that should be working together. Acupuncture is in our view a wonderful form of treatment and we would like to see it recognised. We are delighted that apparently acupuncturists are coming to some consensus and that they will finally be able to get one scope of practice and be recognised under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act. That is one positive aspect that has emerged from the bill when during the select committee process it seemed to be something that was going backwards rather than forwards. We are very pleased about that. 
Despite the Greens’ concerns about the two issues I have talked about which are really significant flaws in the bill—the fact that injury caused by a resource allocation decision is not covered and the fact that the eligibility criteria for lump-sum compensation are discriminatory to those who have long-service injuries that were caused before 1 April 2002—we are so pleased with the changes made to the medical misadventure provisions that we are very happy to support this bill.