Interview - Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, with Tracy Grimshaw, Channel Nine, 'Today'

PHELPS: Good morning, Tracy.

GRIMSHAW: The Prime Minister has offered you an ironclad guarantee, and he says that he will back it up with legislation if you want. Does that change the landscape a little bit?

PHELPS: The promise that the ironclad guarantee will be backed up by legislation is reassuring. At this point, without that legislation, no current government can bind a future government forward with any promises of this nature. So there is still some uncertainty surrounding this until we do get the legislation in place. And we would certainly be looking to the opposition parties that they would indicate support such legislation.

GRIMSHAW: So are you saying until legislation is enacted, doctors and surgeons and specialists will be operating on faith?

PHELPS: Yes, that's the case. But the reassurances of the Prime Minister, I think, go quite some way to helping doctors feel a little more confident in going about their work. But they can't go into their work with 100 percent confidence, particularly given that their insurer is about to go into provisional liquidation.

So the question is what happens with incidents that have occurred in the past that may not yet have been reported? And what about incidents that are currently under investigation? What happens to those if the provisional liquidator says, 'Well, we'll pay 30 cents in the dollar, 40 cents in the dollar.' That still leaves a big exposure for doctors.

GRIMSHAW: So is that what you'll be saying to Helen Coonan today?

PHELPS: We'll be having a wide-reaching discussion with Helen Coonan today. We need to look at what this plan is to take us forward, because at the moment we don't have any detail about this plan. We need to work with the Government, to make sure that it does provide security for doctors and for patients so that they know that if something goes wrong that they do have some recourse. And that doctors can work with confidence to know that if there is an accident that they're not going to go bankrupt.

GRIMSHAW: The Prime Minister is also saying that we have to change the litigious nature of the Australian community and that State governments have to do their part. That's a lot that has to be done in a couple of months.

PHELPS: It's an enormous amount. The State governments are well on the way to tort law reform. The New South Wales Government has already moved on reforming the laws governing medical negligence. And if we can get that right across every State and Territory - and we have had a commitment from the State Health Ministers that they will do that - that will go a long way.

We also need the Federal Government, at this point, to indicate that they will move forward with a national scheme for the care and rehabilitation of people who are severely injured in medical accidents. Because that's where a lot of the long-term and unpredictable costs are with awards that are being put forward in the courts at the moment.

GRIMSHAW: On the issue of what the Government should do, do you think there should be a levy to cover payouts? Because the Prime Minister said this morning he's not considering one?

PHELPS: Senator Coonan yesterday said that there could be a levy. The Prime Minister this morning, thankfully, has said that there won't be. Now, the reason that that is unfair is that, number one, not every doctor in Australia - in fact 40 percent of them aren't insured with UMP so you couldn't levy all doctors. If you were then putting an impost on the doctors who were only in the UMP, they're already struggling. The neurosurgeons are paying $10,000 a month just to keep their doors open just in insurance payments at the moment. They are saying they cannot do any more. In fact they're already saying that they're not working in the private sector until this is sorted out.

And the point is that you're not levying doctors, you're levying patients. Because that cost has to be passed on in increased medical fees.

GRIMSHAW: Do you think the Government has been caught short on this?

PHELPS: Well, the Government's had a lot of notice that this was coming. And we would like to have seen a more detailed plan in place. But I don't think we can afford to look backwards at the moment. We have to take it from today on and look forwards - work with the Government. The AMA's done a tremendous amount of background work on it and we are in a position where we can be working with the Government to find a solution that will work for everyone.

GRIMSHAW: Because Treasurer Peter Costello has said this morning on Sydney radio that doctors ran UMP. They set the premiums, they met the payouts and they got themselves into financial trouble?

PHELPS: Well, that sort of culture of blame is not going to get us anywhere. We are in a position where we have to work forward with solutions. If we look at the factors that were involved in this, it's not just about management of one company. This is about a system that went into chaos because we got into a litigious mentality, that we inherited somehow from the United States. New South Wales is now the most litigious jurisdiction in the world. The litigation costs have gone crazy. People are suing for all sorts of different reasons.

Doctors are not able to say, 'I'm sorry, something went wrong and this is what we're going to do about it.' So that has to change. And we need to look at a cooperative way forward. Not pointing fingers and saying, 'It's your fault. It's your fault.' But State governments, Federal Government, the medical profession, the legal profession saying, 'How can we move forward to have a more efficient and socially just system?'

GRIMSHAW: Okay. Thanks, Kerryn.

PHELPS: Thanks, Tracy.

Ends