Professor Stephen Duckett’s recent article about the funding of pathology services attracted a lot of adverse comment.

Many years ago, at the height of the litigation crisis, I had lunch with him and a senior executive of the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority (VMIA), which, among other things, manages negligence claims for public hospitals and their employees.

We discussed making medical claims strict liability claims — that is, no fault — echoing workers compensation and transport accident compensation.

Literally on the back of an envelope, Professor Duckett calculated that even though the number of claims would increase — because all adverse medical outcomes would be funded, not just those that could find a deep medical pocket to blame — medical negligence claims would not become more costly.