Update Australia 06-20-22
OPRA’s code of conduct is coming into effect. We’re seeing more things happening in different parts of the country. And today I want to set you at ease about some of the things that are going to be coming down the pike. Today we have a lot of information for you. Good morning, Australian chiropractors and allied health professionals. My name is Bharon Hoag. I am the Executive Director of OneChiropractic and The Chiropractic Defense Council coming to you today, Monday, June 20th, 2022 for your weekly update. Well, good morning everyone. You know, I’ve been getting a lot of emails and a lot of things coming at me. So I’m going to try to break this down as much as I can, but thank you. I want the emails, I want the communication. And, I want to make sure that we’re addressing your questions. The biggest topic of today is about OPRA and apparently, news articles are flying about their code of conduct.
We’ve been talking about this for a while. In these videos, we’ve known about this for a few months. We’ve reached out to OPRA, and we’ve communicated to them, but I first and foremost want to calm you. I’m not saying this is a good thing and it’s definitely a problem. We’re definitely looking into it. I’m getting emails from people telling me that they’re going to deregister and do not do that. A code of conduct is not a requirement. I understand it has implications. I understand that they could potentially use that against you on any type of complaint, but we’ve reached out to OPRA and OPRA has responded stating that it is not a requirement. These are just quote-unquote best practices that they’re recommending there, they’re defendable. There are reasons there are always exceptions to why you don’t have to follow a code of conduct.
They’re there just as best practices. So do not, de-register, do not freak out. This is not a requirement. We’re still looking into it. We’re asking OPRA to explain to us where it came from, and why they added it. We believe we know why they added it, but we’re making them put it in writing as to why that was put in there, what their intent behind it is, and what their perceived next steps would be with language like that. So I want everyone to just calm down, do not freak out, we’re on it. Our legal teams are watching who’s sending the letters to Opera to get more clarification. I know it’s just getting a lot of height because it’s narrowing, it’s narrow nearing the time that that goes into effect, but nothing’s going to change. There’s not going to be this huge brute squad that’s going to come any more than there was with all of the mandates prior.
So we’re aware of it. We’re tracking it. We’ll keep you updated as things go along. Secondly, another good week of not, not any issues or complaints a couple of you have emailed me and said, well, you know, this must be why they’re not coming after us. They’re waiting to permanently enforce it. And, we do know that that’s happening. That happened in Vic. It happened in South Australia, you know, they’re legislating these things. And so the good news about legislation is that there are bigger loopholes typically than when there’s just a mandate through executive authority. So, I’m not saying any of this is great, but none of it is as dire as people are making it out to be. We are still moving forward, we’re still working. We’re still defending. We have those few cases where the government has made pretty serious threats.
We have had a couple of providers that have decided to shut down, but nobody has been forced meaning that they’ve locked their doors. Our legal team is defending and working with everybody that we can. We just can’t help it if providers are making the decision that they don’t want to deal with it anymore, and that’s fine, no judgment, but I get some email back from you guys stating I’m making claims that we’ve defended everyone and I’m not trying to make this any rosier than it is. It’s just the reality that we are pushing back on the government. They really have not come in the brute force that everyone believes they would. But I also understand the mental and emotional pressure that goes into having fines and the government tagging you and doing complaints and things of that nature.
So please understand none of my comments are, are in any negative nature at all. However, the things that I’m telling you are accurate, and we are continuing to defend and fight. So we’re moving forward as we continue to fundraise for our legal defense with our lawsuit in Queensland. We’re still working hard at that. Again, if you have any recommendations, please send them my way. If you have people you can talk to, we’re still really needing those resources to be able to push this thing forward. So if you could help us out in any way, I would appreciate it last week. I told you every week, we’re going to pick an email and answer a question.
So this week I have an email from Dr. Simpson and Dr. Simpson asking, I know that you have told us to continue to practice as usual, but what about government policies like NDIS and other government agencies that clearly state that the provider must be vaccinated to provide services?
That’s a great question. We’ve answered that a couple of different times. Not that that’s a backhanded comment at all, but I want you to know that we’ve researched this a while ago. And we do want you to continue to practice as if. We believe you’re practicing, whether it’s a self-pay patient or it’s an NDIS patient. It doesn’t matter. We want you to practice. We want you to continue to have, your health and safety plan, and your COVID safe plan.
We want you to make sure you’re doing your rat tests at a relatively normal rate to show that you’re doing the steps necessary to make sure that your environment is safe. And then we want you to move. A lot of you have exemptions you’ve gone through and done the exemption process, which means you’re okay with NDIS as well on that. So we want you to just continue to practice as normal. Our legal team is here. We’re ready. We’re very knowledgeable in this process, and we’re going to continue to make sure that you have the right to practice as necessary. All right, everybody.
So that’s your update for this week, continue to do what you do, and continue to love and serve. Remember, this is bigger than us. We, I know this seem like it’s our whole world and it’s everything that matters to us. Again, I Get the fear. I get the concern. I get the pressure that’s involved, but we have to remember that there are bigger things at foot here and us sticking together, us growing. If you know of other people that don’t know about us, please spread the word. We want to grow our numbers. We want to make sure that people have a home where they feel safe, they feel protected, and they know that they have that layer of protection if anyone ever comes after them. So it’s why we’re here. It’s what we do. And we do it very well. So we love you. We appreciate you having an incredible week, and we’ll be back to you next week. God bless you. (This is a computer-generated transcript. Please forgive any errors.)
