GP says sorry for attack on PM's husband

By EUGENE BINGHAM

A GP who described Prime Minister Helen Clark's husband as an "inflexible socialist, possibly with an armchair and a chardonnay in close attendance" has been forced to apologise.

Dr Doug Baird, who was Professor Peter Davis' GP in the mid-1980s, made the comments in a column for New Zealand GP on work Professor Davis was carrying out with Health Research Council funding.

Dr Baird questioned whether a conflict of interest arose because of Professor Davis' relationship with the Prime Minister.

Professor Davis complained to the Health and Disability Commissioner that Dr Baird had breached patient confidentiality. The complaint has been upheld.

Dr Baird said in his column: "I admit to meeting Davis on a small number of occasions only ... but I do remember he had a remarkable disinclination even to discuss views that differed from his own. This may, of course, have a perfectly reasonable explanation, but it has left the idea in my head that he is a fairly inflexible socialist, possibly with an armchair and a chardonnay in close attendance.

"This does not dispose me to believe he will be an unbiased academic ... reviewing health services, as they were run by successive and philosophically opposed governments, one of which has his wife as CEO."

Professor Davis said he had seen Dr Baird a number of times in the mid-1980s, but changed doctors because of his "insistent and combative" discussion about health policy.

The column amounted to a sustained attack drawn from conversations in the surgery.

"The signal from a prominent GP is that a doctor can openly, publicly and in an unprompted fashion refer in the media to information - albeit non-therapeutic, but elicited on the practitioner's initiative - from patient consultations to belittle, stereotype and make fun of an ex-patient," said Professor Davis.

In his reply to the complaint, Dr Baird said he understood that medical ethics covered health information.

"It is not my understanding that non-medical, non-therapeutic information gleaned in social chit-chat is subject to the same stringent proscription."

Dr Baird said he he had not divulged that Dr Davis had been his patient, nor had he given away anything that was not already in the public domain.

Two doctors, Dr Ian St George and Dr Rae West, were asked to give expert advice to the commissioner.

Dr St George said Dr Baird had erred ethically and that his obligation of confidence extended beyond pure medical information.

Dr West agreed but said it was surprising Professor Davis had complained to the commissioner rather than just replied through the pages of New Zealand GP.

The commissioner, Ron Paterson, ruled that Dr Baird's column drew on information gleaned from his consultations with Professor Davis.

"In my opinion a patient is entitled to assume that all information disclosed during a consultation with a doctor, and any impressions formed by the doctor about the patient, will remain confidential," said Mr Paterson.

Dr Baird sent Dr Davis a written apology, and has also apologised through his column. He said yesterday that he accepted the decision.

But he said he still believed there were unanswered questions about possible conflicts of interests in having Professor Davis carry out research into the health reforms.

There were also questions about how the Health Research Council reviewed possible conflicts of interest.

Professor Davis was unavailable for comment.

* eugene_bingham@nzherald.co.nz