Update on our meeting with the Federal Ministry of Health (TGA)

On Thursday morning Tina was joined by Dr. Stephen Newbery in a lengthy one-hour meeting with the Federal Department of Health (TGA division) in Canberra. Dr. Newbery is the senior physicist who set up the Tasmanian IPL and Laser Regulations. He is a passionate supporter of the need for regulations to be more comprehensive and applicable in all states and a strong advocate of APAN’s efforts in this area.

While initially, the Government had allocated 30 minutes for us, after reading our submission they decided to extend the meeting to one hour.

At this meeting, we were able to present the current challenges as they relate both to unqualified practitioners, as well as the issue of unsafe devices.

We were also given the opportunity to once again present the challenges that over 100 businesses had experienced with the malfunction of devices provided by UMA and the incredible stress and hardship that many businesses experienced, while some, even bankruptcy.

The discussions explored both the need for tighter measures to ensure equipment safety and performance, as well as potential strategies for ensuring that practitioners meet with appropriate qualifications in every state.

APAN was happy for this opportunity to present extensive and in-depth information on the current state of the industry, while Dr. Newbery put forward different approaches that could make regulation a simpler and more achievable process.

“I also wish to thank all the members who have put forward their specific concerns to us, from fake compliance certificates to burns and errors that many of you are correcting from procedures delivered with poorly trained staff,” Tina said.  “I can assure you that there was a great deal of interesting in hearing about these reports,” she concluded.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the governmental team assured us that our information will allow them to investigate regulatory solutions in moving forward.  We were told that we can expect an outcome in approximately two months.  We will keep you posted on any developments.