Think about it - When was the last time you heard of an AIDS industry staffer being sacked for breaching privacy? As the former, Chairperson of People Living with HIV/AIDS WA Inc I am very well aware of how common as muck this is and while HIV and Domestic Violence are linked, the Left wing and feminist based ideological agenda that has taken over the AIDS Industry refuse to do anything meaningful about the problem! Revealing someone’s HIV status results in loss of friends and/or family and is a direct cause of suicide, but still staff breach privacy in social "games". I have sat in the high office itself and listened to confidentiality beaches and I was laughed at and mocked when I raised concerns about the information that was being bandied about, like matches thrown from an arsonist on a hot windy day!
If grassroots people are to have any confidence in the health system then justice needs to be seen to be done. The reality is once you are in those hospital doors and in the surgery there is nothing to stop dangerous staff from harming patients. There MUST be consequences for harming a patient or a client in an NGO and these MUST include reparations for the damage caused. We need to return to the time when a person found to be releasing private medical information is immediately sacked to send a message to all the rest of the bullies.
It's interesting that the WA Government is gleefully setting up cameras all over the place to track law abiding citizens so why are these cameras not being installed in hospitals and care settings so that family members and individuals have the evidence to prove they have a good doctor. The sheep keep bleating about if you have nothing to hide, well if the medical establishment is as "kosher" as they say, then they won't mind cameras in operating theatres then, will they?
Overseas Trained Medical Staff MUST be provided with education to ensure that they understand discrimination laws and work contracts need to be conditional on meeting those legal obligations. The horror stories that I have heard and my personal experience is that these overseas trained people bring with them attitudes of hostility and Australia should not be employing in our medical system unvetted individuals from countries that throw gays of roof tops or are high organ and human trafficking destinations.
If the Government was serous about safe and effective then wouldn't penalties for harming patients be in place and enforced with a process of justice and reparations made easy to access? The 1990s NGO model are riddled with entrenched systems that serve the staff and the organisations so I am not sure how these unfit for purpose models could be maintained in a truly safe and effective health care system. It should be noted that a number of grassroots organisations have raised serious questions about how when cuts happen it’s always the services for the vulnerable that are stopped while the budget for catering for board members, staff and their friends, is an ever increasingly protected item.
