Dr Michael Sedgley, AMA Chairman of Council, with Howard Sattler, Radio 2SM
SATTLER: On a much more serious note, and we are talking money here, a record $12.9 million has been awarded to a young lady from Vaucluse by the name of Calandre Simpson. As I say, she's young, she was born 22 years ago and it was a forceps delivery. I was a forceps delivery too, but there we go. She had a terrible trauma, and it took quite a long time for her to be born and it's resulted in her now being paralysed. She is confined to a wheelchair - she can't converse properly, at all - she uses one of those keyboard devices to do that sort of thing. Anyway, at the end of the day, for what she has suffered and after a 14 year legal battle, $12.9 million plus, the interest which we don't know what that will be, has been awarded to her. This has sent shockwaves through the medical fraternity and their legal backup groups. They've got a group, I think they're called the Doctors' Defence Association or something along those lines. I'm not quite sure what it's called but, our next guest will be able to help me here. And they're predicting now that the number of obstetricians and gynaecologists will reduce considerably, young people, who are considering various strains of the medical profession will choose elsewhere because they don't want to be subjected to potential for litigation. On the line now is Dr Michael Sedgley, and he's the Australian Medical Association's Medico-legal Chairman. Are you there, Doctor?
SEDGLEY: Yes, good morning, Howard.
SATTLER: What is that doctors' defence group called? Please help me here.
SEDGLEY: The defence group involved is called United Medical Protection.
SATTLER: Thank you. Thank you for that. All right, now, this payout is a record, no doubt about that but, does it necessarily mean that there will be other payouts of that kind in the future?
SEDGLEY: Yes, I think it does. Some commentators say that it doesn't but what happens is it sets a benchmark for the future costs of care and so on of people that will be, and these are the benchmarks that will be awarded by the courts. But, even more importantly, a lot of cases are settled out of court and settled by negotiation and by conciliation and this sets a new benchmark for those cases and it's almost doubled the previous one set of $7 million.
SATTLER: Because the Plaintiff Lawyers are now saying today, and we'll be talking with them shortly, that this is not a precedent and if this doctor had settled out of court a long, long time ago, the payout would have been nowhere near $13 million.
SEDGLEY: The Plaintiff Lawyers will always say that. This is quite a big victory for them because the lawyers who acted for the plaintiff, although their duty of care should be to the court, they often talk about being the advocate for the patient and it's a very big victory for them. They're not going to say this is a bad thing. We're going to say it's a bad thing in terms of the amount of money. I don't think that anybody believes that if a doctor does the wrong thing that there should not be a payout and we all believe that people with cerebral palsy should be properly looked after - I don't think there's any doubt about that. But the difficulty with this is the huge amount of money to be spread across the 700-odd people who still practice obstetrics in Australia. They're getting less and less and, as you said, the other difficulty is the impact it has on our trainees, on young people coming in to our specialities.
SATTLER: Who is going to want to go into that part of medical practice if you face the prospect of these huge payouts and, more importantly, it's not you paying out, it's the insurance fund, UMP, as you say, but they're going to have to increase their premiums substantially, aren't they?
SEDGLEY: We believed that their premiums already next year are going to be very, very high, in obstetrics, in excess of $100,000 a year to practice obstetrics.
SATTLER: Goodness.
SEDGLEY: And this is what we believe. It varies from doctor to doctor, from different groups of doctors to different groups, but of that order and, of course, that was before the judgement.
SATTLER: Your Association President, Kerryn Phelps, has even started going higher. She is saying it could be up to $250,000.
SEDGLEY: It could be. We knew it was going to be over $100,000. What this judgment will do, I hate to think, because, if you think about 700 obstetricians at $14 million - and that's not the end of it, there's all the interest and the legal costs to be paid as well. I think it works out at about $20,000 for each person practising obstetrics in Australia.
SATTLER: Goodness. The State Government of New South Wales is offering assistance for catastrophic awards, as they call it, of more than $1 million. Won't that ease the pain or ease the prospect of pain?
SEDGLEY: That assistance is offered in the public sector of obstetrics for doctors who are working in public hospitals for the Government and that will ease some of the pressure. The trouble is that it does nothing for a particular option that women choose in obstetrics called private obstetrics where they have their own obstetrician.
SATTLER: Sure.
SEDGLEY: And that is what is really at threat and, of course, if that was lost then I doubt that people would wish to work in obstetrics very much in Australia because our public hospital system is in enough strife already.
SATTLER: So who is going to do the work, that very essential jobs for ladies who are having babies?
SEDGLEY: The easy answer to it is, no one at the moment because who is going to be able to pay the premiums?
SATTLER: That's right. Even if you're a midwife you could face the prospect, I guess, of being sued if things go wrong.
SEDGLEY: Exactly. So something has to be done and neither party - no government at the moment - is offering any solution to this. They're talking about tort reform there are meetings that have been going on for 10 years. The Australian Medical Association has been saying there is a problem. There was a huge inquiry called the Tito Review of Medical Indemnity under a previous Labor Federal Government. There is now an inquiry, very belatedly, started by Dr Wooldridge, but only under pressure from the States and that's the AHMAC, the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council.
SATTLER: That could all storm out too, because whatever way we look at it, he won't be a minister after Saturday - he's retiring. So, I mean, has it got to start all over again?
SEDGLEY: No. The point of all these inquiries is they just keep going and going and going. They do nothing. They have, so far, done nothing for the problem.
SATTLER: All right, so what's the answer? Do you have any answers?
SEDGLEY: I believe that there has to be. The plaintiffs have to be rewarded properly, in the circumstances.
SATTLER: What, put a lid on it?
SEDGLEY: Somehow - it's very difficult to talk about capping but, at the same time, you think about other people with cerebral palsy, the 99 out of 100 who don't have any medical negligence involved - what about them? And they're not getting the $400,000 to $500,000 a year that this amount can achieve for this person. There is a grossly unfair element in this as well. So what's the answer? I think that the Government has to become involved, one way or another.
SATTLER: All right. Thank you for your time today.
SEDGLEY: Thank you.
Ends