Patients lose rights over 'old' blood tests

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Medical researchers have won permission to test patients' left-over blood samples without their consent.

The change is said to bring New Zealand into line with the rest of the Western World.

A researcher says it will help deal with diseases such as HIV/Aids, but Women's Health Action and the Green Party see it as a risky weakening of informed-consent rules.

Greens health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley said it was a move back to the days before the Cartwright inquiry of the late 1980s, "putting the needs of researchers ahead of those of the patient".

The change has come to light in the review by Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson of the code of health and disability consumers' rights. He wants public comments on the review by April 30, but not on the changes already approved by the Cabinet in December.

Right 7 (10) allowed substances obtained during a health care procedure to be stored or used only with the consumer's informed consent.

The Cabinet changed that, so consent is not now needed to use such bodily materials for research approved by an ethics committee, nor for quality audits. One type of material involved is the Guthrie cards containing pin pricks of blood taken from most newborn babies since the 1960s.

In another controversial change, Parliament last week permitted evaluators of the cervical screening programme to access patients' medical files without patient consent.

Mr Paterson said yesterday that New Zealand had been "more absolutist" on consent for audits and research using left-over bodily material than other Western countries and had now fallen into step with them.

He emphasised that the consumer's consent was still needed for the actual procedure, such as taking a blood sample or cervical smear. "And anybody has the right to insist that any left-overs are returned or destroyed."

Ethics committees remained a strong protection, he said.

Waiving consent for audits would improve the quality of services for patients and was a response to the Gisborne inquiry into the failings of retired pathologist Dr Michael Bottrill and the cervical screening programme.

The need for patients' consent was hindering audits. It had also scuttled an HIV/Aids monitoring scheme in which left-overs from blood samples at Auckland and Christchurch sexual health clinics were tested for HIV.

Women's Health Action director Jo Fitzpatrick is "outraged" that there was no public consultation.

She called for education material at health clinics to explain the changes and said a special ethics committee was now needed to oversee the Guthrie card database.