Indemnity reforms ease concerns among WA obstetricians

20 October, 2004

State Government legislation to reform statute of limitations law and help overcome the obstacle of retaining and recruiting obstetricians, has been welcomed by the AMA (WA).

"Legal concerns and high costs have forced many obstetricians to leave private practice making it difficult to maintain high quality care for mothers and their babies," said AMA (WA) President Dr Paul Skerritt.

"However, the Government's long-awaited indemnity reform legislation will bring WA into line with other States and will provide a system which is fairer for both patients and doctors."

Dr Skerritt said the new reforms would better regulate the timing of claims and provide greater certainty for insurers when pricing indemnity insurance products.

"The long time previously available for obstetric claims made it extremely difficult for doctors to have any personal memory of past events," said Dr Skerritt.

"It also made it very difficult to ensure cases were judged by contemporaneous standards."

Dr Skerritt said AMA (WA) had worked tirelessly with Government legislators to try and resolve one of the most challenging issues facing the medical profession in this State.

"While other issues still need to be worked through, the amendments (introduced into Parliament this week) mean that obstetricians no longer face the fear of being sued up to 30 years after the event or prohibitive premiums for liability insurance," said Dr Skerritt.

"The new laws will assist in reducing the growth in insurance premiums and encourage doctors to practise obstetrics." Dr Skerritt said obstetricians would now be able to retire without fear of being called back to defend their actions of a quarter of a century ago.

"Attorney General (and Health Minister) Jim McGinty deserves credit for helping resolve this issue and the Opposition should support the legislation to ensure it gets through Parliament during this session," he said.

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