[FluffyOscar]

I'm considering making a complaint about a medical professional.

Has anyone ever made a complaint before? If so, could you please tell me what happened? Did/do you feel like your complaint was heard? Did/do you feel that the health professional changed their way of working? Any negatives to the experience? For example, did/do you feel that you were "blacklisted" by other medical professionals?

Because this is EB I feel I need to say that this is a serious issue, not about the tone of a medical receptionist or whether or not a GP looked in my ears.

[Maple Leaf]

I will be following your thread.

I complained about a GP to the practice and the GP wouldn't acknowledge what they did so went nowhere with that.

Really didn't think about (or have the energy) for going higher but will see what others say.

Good luck with complaint.

[lucky 2]

What about making the complaint to AHPRA, wouldn't that be the best place to take your concern, to the registering body. I suspect the Commissioner will send you back to AHPRA as a starting point.
All the best.

[FluffyOscar]

What about making the complaint to AHPRA, wouldn't that be the best place to take your concern, to the registering body. I suspect the Commissioner will send you back to AHPRA as a starting point.
All the best.

Thanks for that. It seems AHPRA is the National body, and the Health Commissioner is Victoria's State body.

There are three areas that a person can make a "notification" about through AHPRA: conduct, health or performance.

[JustBeige]

If you feel your complaint wont be actioned at a hospital or practise level then I think I would be making a complaint to both if warranted.


I guess your next step to to work out what they did / said that was negligent; what was the consequences of this action(s) and what outcome you want.

You would need to detail all this in your complaint.

I've never complained medically, but I have always found that trying to keep it factual (not emotional) as possible when describing the event(s) helps.

I think if there were serious health consequences then when talking about those you can put more of a victims impact statement slant on that.

Good luck and I hope you get the resolution you want

[noi'mnot]

I think you're meant to try to resolve the complaint with the service provider first. Of course, depending on the situation, sometimes this might not be possible. For example, a hospital generally has a clear complaints system but a GP practice might just ignore or not address complaints, as mentioned by a PP.

Anyway, I've never tried before myself but have supported clients to do so. They've generally received satisfactory results from a response from the service provider through this means.

I'm sorry that you've had a negative experience with a health professional, and I hope that you can get it sorted out asap.

[erindiv]

I made a complaint once but the doctor just denied that she did what I said she did. That was the end of it.

She ended up getting investigated for something else not long ago, but she's practising again so I guess nothing came of it, despite the fact someone died.

[Jemstar]

I complained about a gynaecologist many years ago. To be honest, I didn't feel that I got a satisfactory response. I got a cursory apology and an acknowledgement that he had done the wrong thing (he didn't give me some test results for a pap smear that could have led to cervical cancer had it not been picked up by another doctor). Although he did admit that he was in the wrong, nothing else was done, he received no proessional censure that I am aware of. I was young at the time and his attitude was very superior and I still think to this day he thought he was in the right not giving me the information as apparently I was 'fragile' due to another diagnosis I had already received which conincided with the cervical problem. I don't feel that I was 'black listed' by any doctors as a result. I should have pushed harder, but again, I was young, I was treated poorly and I was left feeling like I was in the wrong for daring to complain about a medical professional.

If it happened now hell would freeze over before I would accept a simple apology for what was a doctor failing in their duty of care.