AUSTRALIA: INSURANCE COMPANIES WON’T COVER DOCTORS WHO GIVE SWINE FLU VACCINE
August 28th, 2009Just stick the Aussie taxpayers with the bill.
Via: Sydney Morning Herald:
THE Federal Government’s plan to immunise the population against swine flu is in chaos because insurers may not cover doctors who administer the jab.
Inadequate testing and the possibility of spreading other infections means there is too high a risk patients will sue, the insurers say.
Despite weeks of crisis talks, the Government has refused to underwrite doctors’ liability for the vaccinations and medical groups say the program – due to start as early as mid-September – cannot proceed unless doctors are insured.
The president of the Australian Medical Association, Andrew Pesce, said: ”The indemnity issue needs to be sorted out or else the vaccination program won’t go ahead … In the environment we’re in, someone has to be held accountable for rare vaccine reactions that may occur …
”If the Government decides there is a priority need to roll out the vaccine, then it has a duty to indemnify the doctors who provide it.”
A spokesman for the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Ronald McCoy, said the wrangling could undermine community confidence in the vaccine’s safety. ”It’s the public’s health that’s at risk here,” he said.
The Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, announced in May an order with vaccine supplier CSL for 21 million doses – enough to protect at least half the population from the flu strain. Analysts’ estimates suggest that contract may be worth up to $120 million.
But the insurers believe the distribution of the vaccine in multiple-dose vials exposes people to unnecessary risk of blood-borne infection from other recipients. As well, they believe the possibility of rare side-effects has been inadequately explored. These issues, they say, will make it hard for doctors to advise people whether or not to have the injection, exposing them to patient complaints that they were not properly informed.
