Fiji Medical Association President says a Nurse Practitioner can't replace a doctor

A Nurse Practitioner cannot replace a doctor.

This was stated by President of the Fiji Medical Association Dr Alipate Vakamocea to the Constitutional Offices Commission Tribunal looking into the allegations of misbehaviour by suspended Commissioner of the Fiji Corrections Service, Dr. Jalesi Nakarawa.

This is after former Corrections Service Senior Medical Officer Dr Rayvan Singh was terminated by Dr Nakarawa to allegedly make way for his wife who is a Nurse Practitioner to take over the role.

Dr Vakamocea while responding to the counsel assisting the tribunal, Juleen Fatiaki says Nurse Practitioners are not allowed to practice medicine unsupervised.

He says doctors are trained to have the breadth of knowledge or skills to treat patients to a safe standard and this is not to the same standard as a Nurse Practitioner.

The Association President says in the case of the Corrections Service officer who was dismissed after being told that he tested positive for methamphetamine were to claim medical negligence, he says that the officer would have a case.

He says this is because a Nurse Practitioner cannot order a drug test as it is outside her scope of work and therefore flawed from the start as she would not understand what she is doing or how to read the results of the drug test.

Dr Vakamocea says when the FMA was given the information of the Corrections Officer they found out that he was taking Ibuprofen for pain, compounding the fact that a history of those being tested should have been done beforehand.

He says one test alone is not enough to prove someone is on drugs, especially if you are going to terminate them.

Dr Vakamocea also says someone on the Fiji Corrections Service panel that interviewed Mrs Nakarawa should have picked up on the fact that she has not been practicing for at least 10 years as she is an academic.

He adds if that were a doctor that had left clinical medicine for 3 years whether to teach or school, they would have to undergo clinical supervision for 3 months when they got back into medicine.

The tribunal is made up of Justices Savenaca Banuve, Daniel Goundar and Dane Tuiqereqere.