The state’s peak medical body is calling on the Tasmanian Health Service to support doctors who want to investigate patient deaths at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
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Senior clinicians at the hospital said they were stymied, according to reports, when proposing to undertake a death audit.
However, Premier Will Hodgman said those claims were rejected by the THS.
On Friday, the Australian Medical Association’s Tasmanian branch called on THS senior management to “work with openness and transparency” when investigating concerns regarding “adverse patient outcomes, due to hospital bed shortages, or from any other identified cause”.
It said the THS executive’s suggestion that a clinician-led death audit would be “unethical research” was “absurd”.
“Proactive doctors should be empowered to understand indicators and investigate ways to improve the local and larger health systems they work in,” AMA Tasmania president Stuart Day said.
“In this case it has been inferred there is unethical behaviour at play, in fact it is exactly the opposite. These ethical doctors are exactly what Tasmania's health system needs.
“Hospital management should be supporting doctors to undertake normal audit processes in order to improve the care we provide to our patients – our main priority.”
Mr Hodgman said systems and processes were in place to “ensure there is a proper assessment process and analysis done in this area”.
”In respect of the assertions made, the advice in the last day or two from the THS has been to reject it.
“We take these matters seriously and they are more important … in terms of ensuring we have the right systems in place and processes, which we are strengthening and have strengthened.”