Peter Dutton has done a pretty disgusting thing in raising mental health as an issue for Roman Quaedvlieg - a quick thread....
Dutton can make a good case just by saying the dates in Quaedvlieg's letter don't add up. But he had to take a swipe at the man on his way through, using mental health....
Dutton - a former health minister, remember - either is making stuff up about Quaedvlieg or knows something about Quaedvlieg's health....
If Dutton doesn't know, and is making stuff up, then he is using mental health as a stigmatised insult. That's a lot of Australians he's insulting about their decision making right there....
But if Dutton knows, then he's breaching confidentiality about someone's health condition in order to take someone down politically....
If I did that, that would get me struck off the medical register, and quite rightly....
He is a member of a government struggling to implement a My Health Record over privacy concerns, and he may be demonstrating that he's prepared to use confidential health information to hurt someone....
Even if he hasn't done this, it looks like he has. (Remember how the same governmnent used confidential Centrelink information to go after a critic?)...
There are specific Medicare item numbers for use in mental health, required to get Medicare rebates for psychological care. Can we trust Dutton not to access this to hurt opponents?.
I seriously hope I am wrong. I don't think my values align with either Dutton or Quaedvlieg but this appears really bad to me.
So many of my patients have mental health problems. They manage well. They are usually the result of a toxic living environment.
TL;DR: MENTAL HEALTH IS NOT A WEAPON TO BE USED AGAINST POLITICAL OPPONENTS.
FULL STOP.
FULL STOP.
