HCCC

An email sent to Premier Minns, using the Member for Parramatta’s email address, on Friday, 27 October, 2023. (We couldn’t find an ordinary email address for the Premier himself.) Hopefully it will be passed on, and we will get a response from the Premier in due course – it’s life and death stuff.

Premier Chris Minns

Dear Premier

To us, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission is a blight on the State of New South Wales, and has been for at least the last 20 years – nothing has changed under previous Governments, and there doesn’t seem to be anything to indicate that anything has changed or will change under the Premier Minns Government. It’s a joke!!! Just comical!!!

Briefly.

According to it’s own website, the Commission received 9,159 complaints from NSW people during 2022-23, i.e. more than 750 NSW people, each month, on an average, took the time and trouble, to lodge a complaint with the Commission. And it would appear to be no reason to think that complaints wouldn’t have continued at this level further into 2023. And it would appear to be reasonable to assume that at least half of these would have been about Doctors, (not Nurses and Miscellaneous others,) say 400 a month. And that a high proportion of these would be alleging that a Doctor hadn’t done a very good job.

Against this figure, during the last month the Commission has issued 4 media releases in relation to Doctors!!!! And only 1 of these was about a Doctor not doing a very good job!!! Two of these were not about a doctor NOT doing a very good job – they were about male Doctors acting inappropriately in relation to female patients. And the other one – and here it’s hard to stop laughing – was about the fact that the Doctor, during the course of carrying out an operation, had accidentally dropped a “chin implant,” on the floor, and had simply picked it up and carried on regardless!!! For which the Doctor received a reprimand.

Easily the biggest concern about all this, is that it creates what is called a “reward system” in which bad doctors make more money than good doctors – which seems to be how it is in New South Wales.

As well, we recently came across this:-

“It has been recently estimated that 350 people a week are killed in Australia by medical error and 1,000 a week are permanently injured.”

(I am one of those permanently injured, and I have got nowhere with all my complaints.)

What can we the people do about all this?

There seems to be no ordinary email address for Premier Minns readily available, but perhaps, next time we decide to take time and effort to lodge a complaint with the HCCC, we could use the ordinary email address of our local Member of Parliament to copy our complaint, and the responses, if any, from the HCCC. Perhaps if, in this way, Premier Minns started to get copies of 400 complaints to the HCCC each month, and any outcomes, it would make a difference – although probably not.

Regards

info@questionsmisc.info

A letter sent to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner, Sue Dawson, on Monday, 14 Feb. 2022.

“A number of years ago I was referred to Dr Kerrie Meades, Ophthalmologist, for help with the double vision I was experiencing – it was becoming worse, I was becoming a danger to myself and others when driving a car, I could have had a bad accident, and nearly did.

So I spent 3 or 4 hours in Dr Meades rooms, at a cost of several hundred dollars, seeing Dr Meades and her people – from which I learnt nothing!

As I was to learn afterwards, from another Ophthalmologist, there’s a solution to double vision which is extremely simple, extremely effective, and costs almost nothing – having prisms in your glasses. When I eventually got prisms in my glasses, it was as though a miracle had occurred, it was as if I no longer had double vision, it was as if I was back in my 40s and 50s again.

But in the whole time I was in her rooms, neither Dr Meades nor any of her people mentioned prisms in your glasses!!!

Also, the reason I persisted with Meades and her people for 3 or 4 hours, was that I kept being told that double vision could have “extremely serious causes,” which required “extensive investigation.”

As I was to learn afterwards, from this other Ophthalmologist, it was extremely unlikely that my double vision was being caused by anything serious, but to make sure, I could have an MRI of my brain, which I did, and it was clear.

So why didn’t Meades and/or any of her people tell me about getting prisms in your glasses and and having MRIs of your brain? It would seem obvious it was so they could get several hundred dollars in fees from me, and they they didn’t care a damn that, in the meantime, for want of this information, I might have a serious accident driving my car.

Naturally, I would have thought, I felt that, on the basis of the above, I had a good basis to lodge a complaint with your Health Care Complaints Commission, which I did. But no, after my complaint was considered and then reviewed, I got the letter shown below from you, yourself.

That was how it was back in 2019. I’m wondering, whether, if, in similar circumstances, I lodged the same complaint with your HCCC in 2002, whether the outcome would be any different? I fear not.

Looking forward to hearing from you.”

We’ll let you know if we get a response.

This letter was emailed to Dr Kerrie Meades, Ophthalmologist, of Personal Eyes, on 4 Feb. 2022, by one of our readers.

In other words:-

(1) When our reader consulted Dr Meades about a particular problem he was having with his eyes, she recommended a particular procedure, but when she carried it out, it didn’t help.

(2) And the treatment scarred one of his eyes.

(3) So after this failure, Meades recommended a different procedure and recommended another Surgeon, external to Personal Eyes, to carry it out, (something to do with delays caused by the Covid virus,) and provided him with a referral letter to this other Surgeon, accordingly.

(4) But, when our reader raised the question as to who was to pay for this second procedure, after the first one had failed, Oops!!! Meades changed tack completely, writing to the reader advising him that it would be too dangerous for him to have the second procedure, (in other words, she didn’t want to have to pay for the second procedure,) leaving our reader with exactly the same problem he had when he first consulted Meades.

Meades response to our reader’s letter advising her that he would be lodging a complaint with the Health Care Complaints Commission about all this, Meades’ response amounted to, “Sure. Go ahead. The HCCC won’t care,” and, impliedly, “I don’t care.”

No wonder the reader has made the comment that Meades seems to be more a salesman than a doctor.

But this is how it is in New South Wales – health care professionals know that, as far as the HCCC is concerned, they can virtually get away with anything. And under the present Government, which has been in power, it seems, almost for ever, and with Gladys Berejiklian, in particular, as it’s leader for nearly four years, things seem to have been getting worse. I’m sure many of us are holding our breath to see if anything will be any different under our new Premier, Premier Perrottet. Or, under Chris Minns, if he ever becomes Premier. Their responses, if any, to posts like this, will soon provide the answer.

This letter was sent to Ms Koff, on Tue. 4 Jan. 2022:-

This letter was received in response, on Thu. 10 Feb. 2022:-

i.e. one month and 6 days later, from some one who hasn’t put his or her name to the letter!!!

This response was sent, on Fri. 11 Feb. 2022:-

We could never get Ms Berejiklian, when she was the Premier, to be interested in these issues, although, God knows, we tried – but she couldn’t give a damn. We’ll soon know if things are going to be any different under the new Premier.

How? By us sending him a copy of this post, and seeing what happens. Of course, we’re not expecting him to respond personally. But we’re certainly expecting that he might arrange for someone to provide a half decent response within a reasonable time – something more that Ms Koff did, on her $700,000 a year.

On Tue. 1 Feb. 2022, the following letter was sent in an email to Premier Perrottet.

On Tue. 8 Feb. 2022, this response was received.

On the same day, this was responded to with this.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. But, as we’re sure our readers will agree, that if this sort of thing is to be typical, Premier Perrottet’s Premiership is not going to be shaping up too well. And that if Health Care Complaints Commissioner Sue Dawson ever gets to read things like this, she’ll continue laughing all the way to her bank.

This is what Wikipedia says about the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission.

“The HCCC plays a unique role in maintaining the integrity of the NSW health care system by receiving and assessing complaints about health service providers in NSW.”

Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! 

We’ve been working on this blog now for just over a year, and we’ve come to, been forced to come to, the conclusion that the integrity of the NSW health care system isn’t being maintained at all, and that this is largely the fault of the HCCC – it’s just not doing it’s job!

The statistics on it’s performance, as we’ve set out in various posts on the blog are horrifying – on it’s own figures, 98 to 99% of the New South Wales people who lodge complaints with the Commission about health care workers, ( just under 520 a week about “treatment,” and just over 6oo a week about other matters,) are being told they have nothing to complain about. As result the health care workers know that they can almost get away with murder, literally. And it’s getting worse!

And the fact that it’s just not doing it’s job is the fault of Commissioner Sue Dawson – who, after initially being appointed for a 5 year term, was granted a second 5 year term in October, 2021!!! On seven hundred thousand a year!!!

But, as far as we’re concerned the real fault lies with Premier Berejiklian, who. as far as we could find out, (and we tried,) didn’t care a damn. And, to us, it’s not looking as though things will be any better with Premier Perrottet in charge, after he’s now been in the job for more than four months.

But readers, into this scenario has come something we find quite interesting and encouraging – according to figures provided by the organisation that hosts it, this blog had 6,441 unique visitors in January, quite a jump from 1761 in December!!! And the figures in, so far, for February, (just the first 3 days,) indicate that another rise of 40 to 50% is on it’s way.

To us, it’s an insult to the people of New South Wales that 98 -99% of the more than a thousand a week of them who are lodging complaints about health care workers in our State, are being told, by the kids at the HCCC, that they are really being quite silly thinking they have anything to complain about, when, in fact, they don’t have anything to complain about at all –  which has getting us more and more incensed for months.

And readers, if you have anything to add to this scenario, email us on info@questionsmisc.info, knowing that well over 250 new people a day may have the opportunity to read what you have to say, that if we can fit everybody in.

This email was sent sent to Gurmesh Singh, the Chair of the Committee on the Health Care Complaints Commission in the NSW Parliament, with a copy to Sue Dawson, the Health Care Complaints Commissioner, on Sunday, 2 January, 2022. We’ll let you know if we get a reply.

In a book called, “How to Motivate People,” it’s author, Michael Le Boeuf, Ph.D., described as an “Internationally Renowned Management Educator,” claims that this is the “The greatest management principle in the world” – “THE THINGS THAT GET REWARDED GET DONE.”

That in every situation there is what can be called a “reward system” which determines the things that get the most rewarded through to the things that get the least rewarded.

After more than 20 years studying these matters, we’re convinced that, when it comes to health care in New South Wales, we have a reward system under which it’s the worst things that get the most rewarded and the best things that get least rewarded – it’s virtually corrupt.

Surely the experiences of one of our readers, who, for convenience we’ll call XXX, about which we have written extensively, illustrates this.

To summarise:-

XXX was experiencing what is called the “frequency problem,” common in seniors, he was  having to get up 2 or 3 times a night to urinate, and when he consulted his GP, Dr Chris Grant, about this, he recommended that he seek help from A/Prof. Andrew Brooks, Urologist. Prior to going ahead with Brooks, XXX wrote to A/Prof. Paul Sved, Urologist, outlining his symptoms and seeking his advice, and Dr Sved’s response was that there were many things to be considered that might help with his symptoms before surgery. But, in the end, XXX decided to trust Dr Grant and Dr Brooks and go ahead with Brooks – obviously to his profound regret, almost daily. For Brooks, surgery was the first option! His diagnosis was that XXX’s bladder had become muscular, and therefore smaller, down to a capacity of about 200 mils, from years of having to force his urine past partial blockages in his urinary tract, and that if he had the treatment he recommended, surgery called the TURP, in which any partial blockages were removed, his bladder would soon be back to a more normal size, say, 330 mls in capacity, certainly within 3 to 6 months, and he would no longer have the frequency problem.

(Brooks had his nurse carry out the tests to back up this diagnosis, for which XXX was charged more than a fully qualified Urologist would have charged, and Brooks has absolutely refused to release copies of the results of her tests, despite the fact that XXX is entitled to them by law – even when he sought the help of the NSW Privacy Commissioner to try and get them, who, incidentally, was completely useless, Brooks still wouldn’t release them.)

So XXX had Brooks’ TURP – which didn’t help him in any way, as Brooks himself has admitted in writing. He still had, and, in fact, still has, the frequency problem exactly the same, AND, it damaged him for life in a highly personal way, something which didn’t just happen sometimes, it’s ALWAYS a consequence of the TURP, and can’t be reversed.

Some 5 months later, as XXX still had the “frequency problem,” he consulted A/Prof. Vincent Tse, Urologist, who had been recommended to him by Dr Sved. Dr Tse went to a great deal of trouble, showing him graphs and so on, showing that his bladder then had a capacity of about 33o mls, but explaining that the fact that he still had the “frequency problem” was because his bladder had become weak, as is often the case with seniors, so that a fair bit of urine was still left in it after he’d urinated, meaning it was sooner before it was full again – about which nothing could be done! No wonder Brooks has refused to release the results of his nurse’s tests – the suspicion is that how XXX’s bladder was, when he consulted Tse, is exactly how it was when he consulted Brooks, 5 months before, when his nurse carried out her tests, and that all Brooks’ talk about  his bladder being small and muscular was fairy tales, put forward so he could justify, at least in his mind, surgery for which he would get $3,2oo for less than an hour’s work. But, and this is crucial, Brooks had claimed that his treatment would take the capacity of XXX’s bladder from about 200 mls to a more normal size, say, of about 330 mls, which would mean he would no longer have the frequency problem, but here it was , with a capacity of  about 330 mls, and he still had the frequency problem???!!!

But our main point in all this is this, who was the most rewarded? – Dr Sved, who charged a couple of hundred dollars for his help, Dr Tse who charged $750 for all his testing and advice, or Dr Brooks, from his fee of $3,200 for less than an hour’s work.

XXX claims that afterwards, when he made the comment, in general conversation, that he thought Brooks was about putting together a “nest egg” for his retirement, Grant just laughed, saying, “I would have thought Dr Brooks had lots of “nest eggs” already” – in other words, that he thought that he was filthy rich.

But wait, there’s more.

XXX claims that over the years, Brooks has had henchmen ring him on 7 different occasions, one in the last few days, on about 10 Aug. 2021, making all sorts of threats, “you might be sued for defamation,” “you might end up in gaol,” etc. etc. etc. if he didn’t take his descriptions of his experiences, his side of the story, down from the internet, while, at the time, steadfastly refusing to tell his side of the story in any way. (Let us repeat again, what we’ve said so often, that we would be happy to put up on the internet Brooks’ side of the story to anything and everything we’ve ever written.) And XXX further claims that one of these henchmen happened to mention that Brooks, from time to time, made “contributions,” (bribes?”) to GPs to help them in running their businesses, which he described as being a “norm” for the industry. And further, that when XXX emailed Grant asking if he’d ever received one of Brooks’ “contributions,” not only did he not respond, but he took action to prevent XXX from sending him any more emails ever again.

So readers, get the picture. Bad specialists making more money, perhaps much more money, than the good specialists, and GPs making more money if they refer patients to the bad specialists than if they refer them to the good specialists.

To us it seems that this is the “reward system” that exists in New South Wales. It makes it difficult for us, the people, to find doctors we can trust.

Unquestionably, Commissioner Sue Dawson and her people in the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission play a big part in bringing this reward system about. When complaints are made to them about people like Brooks, the people who do it find it’s been a complete waste of their time and effort, because they are told they have no basis to complain, and it’s implied that they’ve been stupid in ever thinking that they might have had a basis to complain. The result is that people like Brooks know they can virtually get away with murder!!!

But in the end, the top people in the Berejiklian Government – like Elizabeth Koff, Secretary, NSW Health, Brad Hazzard, Minister for Health, and Premier Berejiklian herself, and others, are the problem. They are the ones who recently appointed Dawson to another 5 years as Commissioner. They ignore all emails about the problem – we’re yet to get evidence that Premier Berejiklian ever responds to any emails from anybody about this. And if anything, all that’s probably happening it that we’re probably just endangering our lives, and the lives of our families, by putting stuff like the above up on the internet. And certainly, we’re getting no thanks from the people.

info@questionsmisc.info.

The impression we get of Commissioner Dawson is that she’s happy to just sit back on her $650,000 a year, (she’s just been granted another 5 year term,) and let the rest of the world go by.

We’ve just, (on Wed. 11 Aug. 2021,) sent her a couple of emails raising matters which we think are of considerable importance to the people of New South Wales.

We’ll see.

Putting this very simply. (More detail is provided in other posts on this blog.)

When one of our readers was referred to A/Prof. Andrew J Brooks, Urologist, for help with what is often referred to as “the frequency problem” – he was having to get up 2 or 3 times during the night to urinate – Brooks recommended and carried out a surgical procedure called a TURP, which (a) didn’t help in any way, AND, (b) damaged him for life in that, during sexual intercourse, his semen was no longer ejected through his penis, with the great feeling that provides, but was just sent up into his bladder without any feeling – the significance of which would, perhaps, never be appreciated by females.

As we’ve written many times, if a male was bashed up by a thug, and, that male, as a consequence, happened to end up with this side effect, we have not the slightest doubt that the thug concerned would end up being sent to gaol, perhaps for a very long time.

YET, Brooks, KNOWINGLY AND DELIBERATELY, (obviously so he could justify, at least in his mind, charging $3,200 for less than an hours work,) recommended and carried out a procedure which has the same consequence, inevitably, it always happens, AND when our reader lodged a complaint with Commissioner Sue Dawson and her people at the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission about this, he was told he had nothing to complain about – that, “WE HAVE NOT IDENTIFIED A DEFICIENCY IN THE CLINICAL CARE AND TREATMENT PROVIDED TO YOU BY DR BROOKS.”

And when a complaint about this decision was sent to Sue Dawson herself, (who’s just been appointed to another 5 year term, as Commissioner,) dare we say it, she must have just laughed it off, because she hasn’t responded, hasn’t even acknowledged the email.

And when Ms Elizabeth Koff, the Secretary of NSW Health, was made aware of all this, she didn’t care either.

And when Brad Hazzard, the NSW Minister of Health, was made aware of all this, he didn’t care either.

And when Premier Berejiklian was made aware of all this, she didn’t care either, of course.

That’s how it is in New South Wales, folks.

In other places in the world, people like Brooks might end up gaol. But, in New South Wales, people like him engage henchmen to ring up people who are continuing to tell the world of their experiences with him that they may end up in gaol if they don’t stop, as keeps happening with our reader, and people like those in the Berejiklian Government don’t give a damn.

info@questionsmisc.info.