« Birth with two wombs | Main | Promoting breastfeeding! »

Double dipping

This morning I heard a report on the radio that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had set up a new code of conduct to oversee the relationship between drug companies and doctors, in particular the way the companies offer freebies and kick backs (my words) as part of their advertising campaigns. The Government feels that this widespread practice needs to be made more transparent, so that patients are aware of what is going on and why certain drugs may be promoted by their doctors over other alternatives.

The schmoozing and massage of the doctors by drug companies (and no doubt equipment manufacturers as well) is outrageous. Incentives to attend conferences, free samples, free publications etc are all widely offered and received. The doctors need to keep up to date with rapidly changing developments in the medical field, which may not be so easy in a busy professional life. However, the requirement to keep updated comes with the territory and is a requirement for maintaining registration.

In addition, subscriptions to professional journals, registration fees for Conferences and seminars and other strategies that can be proven to be important for the maintenance of professional competence are all tax deductable. Doctors earn huge amounts of money (despite their protestations, no-one has ever met an impoverished doctor in Australia) and I would have thought that a few handy tax deductions might be useful.

At a recent workshop I presented, the midwives’ attendance was subsidised by the taxpayers, through a special purpose grant. Midwives earn very modest salaries and often get no help with seminar or Conference fees, and have to fund their registration, travel and accommodation from their own pockets. However, the doctors (GPs) who attended this workshop were paid to attend, the princely sum of $1500 for each day. The cost of the workshop to the taxpayers would have worked out at around $100 per day for each of the midwives, so the doctors did very well. In addition, two of them didn’t stay the whole time, dashing in and out to attend patients, for whom they would have received payment as well. Not bad - being paid handsomely to be in two places at once!

Knowing about this rort of the system left me feeling less than charitable (hence this whinge) when I also heard a comment from the Australian Medical Association spokesperson, in response to the report on the radio, that any changes made to the current system, “were unnecessary”, and might discourage drug companies from telling doctors about new treatments. Perhaps he was thinking about the added costs to his own pocket if all the freebies dry up.

You can read more about this interesting development on the ABC’s Newsradio website.

Posted by andrea at July 27, 2006 11:53 AM