Former Health NZ boss addresses doctor’s anti-vax misinformation

Former Health New Zealand boss Rob Campbell has spoken out after a doctor sent a Covid-19 patient anti-vaccination disinformation.

Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell revealed yesterday that the doctor has been made to apologise for sending an anti-vaccination document while the patient was isolating in 2021.

McDowell said the woman was isolating at home with her two children when she received a phone call from the doctor.

After the phone call, the doctor emailed the patient, attaching a document called “Guide to COVID Early Treatment”.

The email said: “Please find attached a COVID treatment guideline p15. Please talk to your family doctor and see if they think it would be appropriate for you.”

The patient told the HDC she was worried about the doctor contacting members of the Pacific community.

“‘This is scary to think this information has been sent out to some of the most vulnerable people who SHOULD be getting vaccinated to fight off this virus.”

McDowell said on the same day the doctor sent the document, the patient complained to a number of organisations, including the HDC, the Ministry of Health and a media outlet.

In response, the doctor sent a letter and apologised for any “unintended distress”.

The letter read: “I have been involved in talking to the Pacific community about encouraging vaccination and addressing their concerns about it (after-hours in my personal time). I have never discouraged anyone from getting the covid-19 vaccination. I am fully vaccinated.

“I believe you are not aware of the consequences of your complaint as I regard it as highly defamatory. Your complaint suggests that I am spreading the antivaccination message. This is completely FALSE.

“Without confirming your false beliefs about me, you have sent your complaint to the media, New Zealand Medical Council, Covid-19 response team, Dr Ashley Bloomfield and my managers which has serious consequences.

“I will need to advise all the recipients that the information provided is false. Your complaint not only affects me but my immediate and wider family.”

Campbell told Breakfast this morning that the email was “careless” but “we all make mistakes”.

“We need very strong rules and codes for these kinds of things, health is so important so you need to maintain very high professional standards.”

“The critical thing about this I think is transparency and accountability, so we need people to raise issues when they think they are there.”

Campbell said he thinks the incident was careless more than anything.

“You know the clinicians that are looking after us day by day are human beings, they will make mistakes, it’s not all necessarily that they’ve got some dark motive for it, in fact that’s very very seldom the case.

“In this case, some carelessness about a document, wrong information was given out, it’s been raised, the HDC’s dealt with it and I think that’s a really good things for us to acknowledge and to see more of.”

“These clinicians have been under enormous pressure, they’re human beings, they’re short staffed, underpaid.

“So there will be mistakes and it’s important that we see them and learn from them and deal with them, not by way of allocating blame but asking how we can do better.”