Doctor reprimanded

Press, 28 August 1979, Page 25

Doctor reprimanded

PA Auckland An East Coast Bays medical practitioner, Dr W. B. Rodgers, has been reprimanded, but not disciplined, by the Medical Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee for pro-abortion messages given on his telephone-answering machine. The former Minister of Health (Mr Gill) complained soon after the last General Election of three messages left on Dr Rodgers’s answering machine during 1978. Two of these were alleged to have advocated repeal of the Abortion Act. A third message, given after a local

doctor had been appointed a certifying consultant for abortions, pointed out that Mr Gill and Dr G. A. Wall, the member of Parliament for Porirua, were Roman Catholics. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” said the message. In his decision, the chairman of the committee (Dr D. L. Richwhite) said the committee believed that “as a general principle any doctor can express his views on matters of politics and social issues as an informed citizen. A doctor must not use his professional relationship with a patient for fur-

thering his own attitude. But, of course, he can discuss them freely.” The committee found that Dr Rodgers’s messages were “extremely unwise and would be regarded by some of his patients as a barrier to the best doctor-patient relationship.” The committee also found that Dr Rodgers’s “implied criticism of a professional colleague was, in the circumstances, unethical.” But the judgment said his breach of ethics and lack of wisdom was “not of such a gravity as to constitute professional misconduct and the charge is accordingly not sustained.” Dr Rodgers, who has been giving messages on his machine since 1970, said that he was delighted with the decision. He said he used the messages to help to break down the impersonal nature of the answering machine. In nearly 10 years, no patient had complained of them, he said. Only Mr Gill, who was not a patient, had criticised them. He (Dr Rodgers) would continue with them.