00:01The regulator of health practitioners known as APRA is currently investigating 5,000 findings
00:08of professional misconduct dating back to 2010. It's so far found 107 were of a sexual
00:15nature so now need to be permanently classified as such on the public database. 86 of those
00:21practitioners have already had their registration cancelled but 21 are still currently practicing.
00:27Most are in New South Wales and Victoria and the majority are doctors. Now this change
00:33comes after last year the health ministers decided it needed to be more clear when a
00:39practitioner had engaged in sexual misconduct. Up until now, findings were removed from the
00:44register after the practitioner had served any disciplinary action. Here is the APRA
00:50CEO Justin Untensteiner on what this change means for patients.
00:55What this change means is that information is transparent, it's easy to access for the
01:02public and gives patients choice of who they might see. I do want to be clear though, even
01:08one finding of sexual misconduct by a health practitioner is one too many. All members of
01:14the community should feel safe and trust the services that they are accessing in the health
01:20system. Paige, why are some practitioners allowed to keep practicing after engaging in sexual
01:26misconduct? So in a lot of cases they do have their registration cancelled but sometimes they
01:32are deemed capable of rehabilitation and they might have restrictions imposed. So that might
01:38be conditions around seeing women or children for example. The sexual misconduct does cover a wide range of
01:47behaviours both in and outside of clinical settings, anything from criminal convictions to having a
01:54relationship with a former patient. The tribunal system is set up to protect the public and assess risk but
02:03it's not there to punish practitioners. And how do people check the register?
02:08Yeah, so people can go to the APRA website to check the register, check their local practitioner.
02:15APRA regulates doctors, nurses, podiatrists, physios, psychologists, many other professions.
02:22And so as of today any sexual misconduct findings will be very clearly stated there on the register.
02:29But APRA is still doing its investigations so more will be added later in the year around June.
02:35Thanks Paige.
Comments