Doctors Health Advisory Service

About

Health professionals spend their lives solving other people’s problems. Their work revolves around helping others overcome disease and injury.
But when they themselves have problems, life can be a very lonely and stressful business. Who do they turn to?

The Doctors’ Health Advisory Service has for the past seven years been helping medical professionals overcome their problems and carry on in what is becoming an increasingly stressful field.

The New Zealand branch of DHAS is part of an Australasian network and is manned by around 100 professionals – 70 of them doctors, 10 dentists, 10 physiotherapists and 10 clinical psychologists.

Their input into the New Zealand health system throughout New Zealand does not make the headlines. Nor is it generally known to the public. But it is vital to the overall wellbeing of the nation.

The DHAS is an independent body supported financially by the Medical Council of New Zealand, the Medical Assurance Society, the New Zealand Medical, Dental, and the New Zealand Society of Physiotherapists & Psychologists.

It has a central advisory group of 10 members who represent a wide range of professional groups and medical societies.

Its prime aim is to provide a free, confidential personal advisory service for medical practitioners, dentists and physiotherapists or students with health problems; and to promote the personal health and wellbeing of health practitioners so they can practice medicine effectively.

The DHAS works through a national telephone network. Although the DHAS encourages all health professionals to have their own GPs, calls for help are increasing.

“We have assisted over 100 health professionals and their families, in the past 12 months, or between one and two per cent of the profession,” said Dr Edwin Whiteside, the national chairperson of DHAS.

Dr Whiteside practises occupational medicine, sharing his time between private practice and work for a number of NZ companies. It is a field that is well suited to helping his fellows.

In recent years in New Zealand the profession suffered a number of suicides, which may have been prevented with adequate support or help.

Not all calls to DHAS are directly about personal health. Sometimes health professionals are suffering stress caused by financial problems, or relationship problems, as well as work difficulties.

With the financial revolution that has taken place in New Zealand’s health service, the old-style Health Boards have been replaced by Crown Health Enterprises whose main aim is to be financially accountable. This can lead to the inevitable stresses of overwork on employees.

For instance, says Dr Whiteside, in many rural areas hospitals do not have medical registrars. That increases the burden on younger inexperienced doctors.
A DHAS pamphlet gives three examples of case histories demonstrating potential problems encountered by medical professionals.

One is an elderly GP with an obvious memory disorder, who is noticed by the pharmacist to be making prescription errors.

Another is a young woman hospital resident who is under stress from family commitments and work pressure and is under the influence of sedatives while at work.
A third is a surgeon with a hand tremor, who gets angry when it is pointed out, and is suspected of having Parkinson’s Disease.

All are problems for the professional concerned – and for the public who rely on their skills and judgment.

The task of DHAS is to enable professionals to achieve and maintain the highest possible standards of efficiency in the best interests of patients – and to enable impaired practitioners to return to work as soon as they are recovered.

DHAS began with a group of medical professionals who had themselves experienced personal difficulties. The self-help and peer group support approach grew from there.
It now includes dental practitioners and members of the New Zealand Societies of Physiotherapists & Psychologists.

If the network’s professionals cannot personally provide the advice or support needed, an assessment of those needs is made and callers are referred on to specialists who can assist them.

DHAS’ other major function is to educate and inform health professionals about the assistance that is available to them in times of illness or stress.

The service has produced a book, “In Sickness and In Health”, which is available to students as well as practising health professionals.

There has also been the development of seminars throughout the country, providing a forum for discussion among DHAS members and other groups on the problems health professionals face.

* Medical practitioners who wish to know more about DHAS, or who have a problem with which they need advice, should ring freephone 0800 471 2654, fax (04) 499-3239 or write to DHAS, PO Box 812, Wellington or email: dhas@clear.net.nz Website: www.doctorshealth.co.nz