PRIVILEGED SOMETIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 16

PRIVILEGED SOMETIMES.

PATIENTS' STATEMENTS TO DOCTORS. EVIDENCE IN COURT. DIFFERENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES. "The legal position it \*ell known, and it is the same here as In Australia," said an Auckland medical man to-day anent a court case in Sydney when it was laid down that privilege could not be claimed for a conversation between a doctor and one of his patients. He said that a medical man would find a way out of the difficulty by getting the patient's consent, but he admitted that It would be difficult to know what to do in a criminal case. A member of the medical profession regarded a conversation with a patient as strictly confidential, as, were statements disclosed, patients would lose confidence in medical men, and would not be ready to help with a diognosis by telling the truth. Apart from any legal obligation in court a doctor would not be justified in repeating a statement when another person was concerned. It' might be that a man suffered from some disease and was about to marry. Even if the doctor personally knew the woman of the man's choice he would not be justified in revealing anything to her. "But," added the speaker, "a medical man would be more than justified in doing everything in his power to point out to the man the misery that might be caused."

The law had its limitations, and could not make a man talk, even a doctor. He considered that if doctors revealed information that was given to them in confidence it would undermine the status ©i the medical profession. Personally he felt that a doctor would be morally right in refusing to divulge information under such circumstances

Another Auckland medical man recalled a historic case at Home in which a medical man steadfastly refused to break what he held to be his professional, and therefore sacred bond of secrecy, electing to go to gaol rather than betray the trust reposed in him. A member of the legal profession in tfie city said that the matter was made clear in subsection 2 of section 8 of the Evidence Act, which set out that information should not be divulged in| civil proceedings without the consent of the patient, unless the question of sanity was the matter in dispute. The section Went on to say that there was no protection for a communication made for a criminal purpose. He added that in the case of the St. Helens Hospital inquiry it was held that conversations could not be divulged without the consent of patients; that the medical man could communicate a statement to someone else in the institution, but the person receiving same could not divulge it.