‘Panels an insult to women and doctors’

Press, 24 August 1977, Page 5

‘Panels an insult to women and doctors’

PA Auckland The proposed panel system for abortions is an insult both to women and the medical profession according to a spokesman for the General Practitioners Society.

Dr Peter Willcox said the State had no right to interfere in health care apart from setting standards. “We feel the only role the State has to play in the early stages of a pregnancy is to set restrictions on the places where abortions are performed to ensure the qualifications of physicians performing them,” he said.

“These restrictions are only those necessary to protect the mother’s physical and mental health.” Dr Willcox was one of nine representatives of medical organisations which has spoken against aspects of the Government’s Contraception. Sterilisation and Abortion Bill.

The organisations were divided over the proposed State-appointed supervisory committee, but were unanimous in opposition to the panel system. Dr Ros Vallings, speaking

for the doctors involved in the Family Planning Association, said a panel situation would be "humiliating and degrading. “We frequently have to deal with the emotional disintegration of women who have been before panels in hospitals,” she said. “It is something no woman should have to go through.’’ Dr Vallings said panels would result in the fragmentation of patient care. Dr Ronald Elvidge, a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the bill could well place his fellow practitioners in a very difficult and invidious position.

“The panel system is unacceptable in all its facets. It could be to the detriment of the patient concerned, and could lead to disharmony among the medical profession,” he said.

“It is my opinion that any two fellows of this college who have specialist recognition should continue to be entitled to perform an abortion where they consider it necessary and legal.” Mr David Wills, president of the Nurses Society, said

the panel system would involve unnecessary restrictive bureaucracy and would cause undue emotional trauma to the patient. Other organisations represented included the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Psychological Society, the Association of Social Workers, the College of General Practitioners, and the Obstetric and Gynaecological Society. Doctors would not be compelled to sit on the abortion review panels proposed under the bill, the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said. As there was no compulsion to be on the panels, there was no need for a “conscience clause” giving doctors the right not to sit on panels. Mr Muldoon was answering quotations at a news conference on a report that the chairman of the Medical Association (Dr G. Gordon), had expressed concern that, contrary to the Royal Commission’s recommendation, there was no right of objection in the bill introduced in Parliament on Friday.