DOCS SPEAK OUT
CAFE BLAST FINDINGS WORRY NEUROLOGISTS
A HIGH-PROFILE Townsville neurologist says doctors throughout North Queensland are concerned about the findings of a coronial inquest into the explosion at a popular Tablelands’ café that claimed two lives.
Nicole Nyholt, 37, and Margaret Clark, 82, were killed and 19 others injured when local Brian Scutt suffered a seizure and drove his ute into two gas cylinders at the rear of The Serves You Right cafe in Ravenshoe in 2015.
Mr Scutt, who survived the accident but died in 2019, had a history of epileptic seizures dating back to 2004 and had been advised not to drive on numerous occasions before the tragedy.
Dr Craig Costello, speaking from the Mater Private Hospital Townsville, said he was concerned that Coroner Nerida Wilson’s recommendations failed to recognise the complexities of the emotive driving licence medical assessment process.
“Look, I agree with the recommendations,” Dr Costello said.
“There needs to be more education and there needs to be more understanding, I don’t have a problem with that.
“But I don’t think it actually gets to the crux of the problem,” he said.
“I think there are other things that need to happen with the system, and I think there would be wide support.”
Dr Costello said the responsibility should not fall squarely on the shoulders of medical practitioners, saying informing on a patient could be viewed as a conflict of interest in their capacity to advocate on behalf of their clients.
It is not mandatory for medical professionals to report on patients they determine are unsuitable to drive or require further assessments, but a licence holder’s legislative responsibility to report any impairment that may affect their suitability to drive.
Ms Wilson, however, found that education campaigns could be “specifically developed to educate those practitioners about the avenues to report patients directly to the state licensing authority in circumstances that are consistent with Austroads’ fitness to drive guidelines.”
She recommended the creation of a Department of Transport and Main Roads-led working group comprising Queensland Health, Austroads, the Office of Health Ombudsman and other medical organisations to improve education about voluntary reporting.
Dr Costello said that although Ms Wilson noted in her 85-page ruling that those included in the working group was not exhaustive, it did not include “the very doctors that deal with this on a daily basis, including neurologists.”
“The incident case was a person with epilepsy. Who assesses that? Neurologists.”
He said colleagues from across Queensland were drafting a response to the coroner’s findings and the opportunity it presented to recognise the complexities and improve the system for all.
“The widespread opinion is we need something more than education.
“We need to look at redesigning this system because otherwise we will engender a system where people don’t tell the truth and that’s the big risk,” he said.
“We rely on people’s honesty. “The harder we make this, the more you surreptitiously encourage people to run the gauntlet.
“We need to take the opportunity that arises out of these tragic deaths and build a better process.”