But for its determination to be nasty, the Australian Medical Association might have found insurers jumping on its bandwagon to abolish people’s rights to sue doctors for personal injury. But the insurers wouldn’t have liked the preferred vehicle – a no-fault compensation scheme similar to New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation.

Under the AMA’s proposal, people would lose the right to sue their doctors for personal injury, other than for exemplary damages. Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra last week, AMA President Kerryn Phelps said it was time to “fast track or change tack”.

“We need an alternative to the current adversarial legal system for medical negligence,” Dr Phelps said. “As a community we need to put an end to the notion that patients have the basic right to sue their doctors.”

Then she turned to medical indemnity, and the role of insurers. She said she doesn’t want medical indemnity insurance to be about insurers making money, but about protecting doctors. Most AMA members in NSW – Dr Phelps’ home state – were caught out by the collapse of United Medical Protection.  

“Medical indemnity should not be treated as a commercial opportunity,” she said. “It is and should be a service for doctors and injured patients, not an opportunity for commercial insurers to line the pockets of insurance company executives and shareholders.”

Dr Phelps disagrees that the commercial viability of insurers in the medical indemnity industry will return stability to the crippled medical indemnity insurance system. “I say that the best indication of stability returning to the scene would be a massive reduction in the number of cases being mounted against doctors.”

Those prepared to dismiss the AMA stance as silly should remember that Dr Phelps and her members are in the midst of a seemingly unsolvable dispute over medical indemnity; and that the AMA – and Dr Phelps – have powerful influence in Canberra and the state capitals.