Privacy Laws !

The findings into an air crash in 2015 that killed one hundred and forty-nine people must send chilling thoughts through the mind of airline passengers.  Andreas Lubitz ( 27 ) was a mentally disturbed young pilot who it is alleged locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately dived the passenger jet to it's doom in the French Alps.

The sad aftermath of this investigation is that Lubitz was being treated for psychotic depression and had been taking a course of antidepressants and yet the airline that employed him had not been made aware of his condition.  The doctors treating him had advised him to recluse himself from flying, but he deliberately kept his condition secret from Germanwings, his employer.

This seems to be another case where common sense butts heads with the privacy laws enacted in many world countries.   The German doctors treating Lubitz were prevented from taking any action because of these privacy laws, even if they became aware that a man in that profession  posed an unacceptable risk to the public.  Privacy is sacrosanct and comes well before any other form of public protection.

Unfortunately this Germanwings crash was not entirely unusual.  There have been several other air crashes where a pilot has committed suicide and decided to take the passengers along on a death ride.  In one instance a pilot had suffered stock exchange reverses and chose death rather than bankruptcy and in another the pilot was told he would be retrenched at trips end.

Australian privacy laws could result in a similar tragedy and it is probably a good time to reform them to allow the medical profession to intervene in special circumstances.   Suicide does not infringe the law and that is an option legally available to anybody wishing to end their life, but it would be reasonable to isolate that proviso to just the life of the individual.   A suicidal person who has the lives of many others in his or her hands poses an intolerable risk, as was evidenced in these air crash events.

As always, the devil is in the detail.  Some medical people could interpret any relaxing of the privacy laws along the thinking of their own morality and start exposing any patient with depression to the authorities.   Obviously, the job factor would be a major issue in deciding risk.  Not only air pilots but the drivers of commuter trains have the lives of many in their hands, and should a person driving a semi trailer decide to end his life by deliberately crashing head-on in traffic, the death toll could be numerous.  Selecting the dividing line of risk would be a nightmare for any doctor.

We probably need to settle that divide by legislation.  Perhaps it should become a term of employment  for all those deemed responsible for the safety of numerous lives that they are regularly medically checked and reported on by a psychiatrist of the company's choosing - and who have legally waived their right to the privacy laws.   Under such a regimen, that doctor wold be legally bound to report any abnormality to the company.

Mental health is something sufferers usually hide and to be effective it would be preferable if the examining doctor was long term and so gained a better understanding of individuals personality.  There is no sure fire answer to the deterioration of mental health but it is possible that legislating to screen the handful of professions most at high risk of inflicting death on others would provide an adequate safety valve to prevent a repeat of the Germanwings event.