TWO women implanted with an Australian-invented pelvic mesh device at Sydney Private Hospital in 2013 want to be named in Newcastle Herald articles calling for a commission of inquiry into the pelvic mesh scandal.
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But they can't be.
Because the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has issued a non-publication order over all patients' names in the case of two gynaecologists, Peter Petros and Richard Reid, it is an offence for the Newcastle Herald to name the women, even though they have consented.
If they want to be named they will have to apply to the tribunal and attend a hearing to make their case. They had no say in the issuing of the order, played little part in the process that led to Dr Petros and Dr Reid being found guilty of professional misconduct, apart from being referred to as patients who had experienced adverse events, and now they have been silenced at the end.
The newspaper has been in protracted communications with the tribunal registry about the consequences of the tribunal making a standard non-publication order to protect patients' privacy.
The Herald does not want to breach patients' privacy. The Herald does want access to volumes of files collected during the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission investigation of Dr Petros and Dr Reid, which could show how Dr Reid was able to continue working at Sydney Private Hospital for many months, despite two near-fatal incidents involving women patients.
The Herald wants to know - because the women want to know - how the hospital became the only centre in Australia to allow pelvic mesh surgery using Dr Petros's Tissue Fixation System (TFS) device. It wants to know what processes the hospital followed to ensure the device manufacturer could substantiate the device's safety and efficacy, and how rigorous was the hospital's oversight of women patients who repeatedly returned for surgeries after complications.
But the tribunal has said no to the Herald's request for access to the files, citing patient privacy. And when the Herald narrowed the definition of its request to limit any references to patients, the tribunal registry said it was under no obligation to redact patients' names.
The tribunal breaching its own non-publication order last week and naming of four of the Sydney Private Hospital mesh patients was extremely unfortunate, and upsetting for the women.
Just as upsetting is the feeling that justice has not been done in a process where the two doctors retired before they could be disqualified.
The irony is that the tribunal has written that it is in the public interest for the doctors' conduct to be "recorded" because "no disciplinary sanction can be directed by the tribunal".
And that "recording" requires the media.
Issue: 39,320.
