Bird flu doctors' catch-22

Doctors are calling for legal protection if a human bird flu pandemic forces them to work in "nightmarish circumstances" in breach of the law.

Under the law many general doctors - as employers - can be prosecuted if they breach occupational health and safety (OSH) regulations.

They can also face charges of professional misconduct if they breach the Health Consumers' Code of Rights and provide patients with less than ideal care.

But New Zealand Medical Association chairman Ross Boswell said a bird flu pandemic could result in severe staff shortages through sickness and a rocketing number of patients, creating circumstances in which doctors would be breaching both sets of laws if they continued working.

"We need assurance given in legislation or regulation that doctors who use best endeavours in nightmarish circumstances will not later find themselves in difficulties with draconian OSH fines, with adverse Health and Disability Commissioner findings, or with disciplinary proceedings," Dr Boswell wrote in the association's December newsletter, Medspeak.

"Without such assurance, doctors may be unwilling to expose themselves to legal risk."

He said that situation arose in New Orleans this year following Hurricane Katrina, when functioning hospitals were desperately short of staff, but staff from damaged hospitals were not able to work there because they could not get indemnity protection. However, Dr Boswell said legal protection should not be hard to provide. State of emergency regulations and laws should be changed to allow the suspension of doctors' normal standards of practice and employer responsibility.

"We need to be able to do what we can for a flood of worried, ill, and possibly dying patients without fear that we may later be censured for cultural insensitivity or for failing to take the time to get full and minutely detailed informed consent for treatment or non-treatment."

Dr Boswell said the association had raised the issue with the Health Ministry and would continue to push the issue until there was a satisfactory conclusion.

- NZPA