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Document
Article: HealthQuest
By Rachael Westwood
HealthQuest grew out of the Government Medical Office (GMO) which was (and is) headed by the Government Medical Officer. The GMO provided a service to Public Sector organisations for assessing staff who were having health problems at work. They either helped employers to readjust the staff member to their position, helped find another position for the staff member, or medically retired them. Public sector organisations are legally obliged to maintain the good health of their employees, so the GMO services were part of a package. The GMO gave all staff members a medical exam upon employment. Some public sector organisations still use GMO to fulfil the requirements of the legislation.
For bulk of people who go to HealthQuest there is no problem because everyone involved in the process - employer and employee - agrees that there is a problem. The employee is genuinely ill and needs medical help. The employer is not qualified to give that medical help and so can rely on HealthQuest. As well, some people collude to get themselves medically retired.
However, some people are subjected to collusion by other people. Some are railroaded into medical retirement by employers and unions alike. These people are troubleshooters who become "troublemakers" (see Peter Anderson).
There are, as you would expect, guidelines for HealthQuest. That the guidelines are not always followed is not necessarily a problem because by and large everyone involved in the process wants the same outcome. The problems arise when the employer and employee have different outcomes in mind.
One set of guidelines is the Premier's memorandum 98-1 which sets out that:
-
A public sector employer shall give full account to the employee of
what documents and information they're providing HealthQuest.
- The employee should be given the option not to attend.
- The psychiatrist should not interview a person they know is there
without consent.
- During the consultation process leading up to the HealthQuest interview, the employer should encourage the employee to bring along a support person or witness.
Psychiatrists and doctors all have professional and ethical guidelines with which they should comply. For example, they should encourage and facilitate support persons and witnesses. The relationship they have with the employee is not a therapeutic relationship - they take role of investigator at the behest of the employer. They are there to investigate and report; therefore they should encourage a third party in the investigation. Instead doctors and psychiatrists do the opposite. Further, they should go to some pains to explain that theirs is an investigative, not a therapeutic, role.
In writing their report psychiatrists should take responsibility. HealthQuest should only be providing statements to employer that the employee is fit or unfit. In the worst sort of case, instead of this, the employer gets told the nastiest details of the psychiatrist's report: the employee is paranoid or delusional or suffering early onset Alzheimer's or has several personalities. The employer gets a diagnosis and that diagnosis is blabbed around town. Many people believe that HealthQuest makes fraudulent diagnoses. A person who wants to be medically retired doesn't care about the diagnosis because they know it's a fraud but it gets them the result that they want. A person who is fighting for justice does care.
Whistleblowers NSW invited Helea Gapper along to the 1997 seminar so that she could state her case. As a result, a dialogue started and she offered to talk and an appointment was made. However, when she learned that Stewart Dean was going along, she cancelled, claiming that he wasn't a fit person for an interview. So Cynthia Kardell wrote to her outlining our objections to the way HealthQuest practises its medicine. Her reply was simply - read my paper. We began to demonstrate.
The first demonstration was held in March outside HealthQuest and that was a small, well run affair, just a run-up to the main events. The next demo was held at Missenden road (outside the Central Sydney Area Health Service). That one was louder and resulted in a dialogue between the inappropriate Stewart Dean and Michael Wallace. After a promising dialogue we received a disappointingly bureaucratic reply and Stewart prepared the last demonstration, a noisy and well attended demo, and no doubt not the last. In the interim, a number of our members have been contacted by ICAC to let them know that ICAC is investigating the wider issue of HealthQuest's modus operandi, although it will not be addressing any individual matters. That investigation is being conducted by ICAC's Education and Prevention of Corruption Unit. That Unit just looks at systemic problems, not at individual instances. The Unit with which most whistleblowers will have had dealings with is the Investigative Unit.
In early 1998 to June 1998 Whistleblowers Australia ran a survey of our members regarding their treatment at the hands of HealthQuest. The results were sent off to the Ombudsman and we have made a complaint to the Ombudsman that HealthQuest is guilty of maladministration. They've asked for more information and a list of people who responded to the survey along with their employers. Val Kerrison and Charles Willock were largely responsible for drafting the survey. Val managed the whole process with Cynthia Kardell and was largely responsible for collating results.
So all in all, Whistleblowers NSW and Whistleblowers Australia have made slow but steady progress in the ongoing battle with HealthQuest. We have our vigorous and inappropriate members to thank for a lot of the work: Stewart Dean for indefatigable protest organisation and for annoying Helea; Gerard Crewdson for his street theatre (what is demo without costumes?); Val Kerrison and Charles Willock.
(http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/contacts/au_wba/whistle199811.html)