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Invitation for public submissions on the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021

Invitation for public submissions on the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021

About the Mandatory Disease Testing Act

The Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021 (the MDT Act) came into effect in NSW in July 2022. It provides for the mandatory blood testing of a person where a health, emergency services or public sector worker comes into contact with a person’s bodily fluid, and the worker is at risk of contracting a blood borne virus.

Agencies whose workers can apply for a mandatory disease testing order under the MDT Act are:

Corrective Services NSW	NSW Rural Fire Service
Fire and Rescue NSW	NSW State Emergency Service
Inspector of Custodial Services (NSW)	Office of the Sheriff of NSW
Law Enforcement Conduct Commission	Official Visitors to NSW correctional and juvenile justice facilities
NSW Health Service	St John Ambulance Australia (NSW)
NSW Ombudsman	Youth Justice NSW
NSW Police Force

For an order to be made, the contact with a person’s bodily fluid must have been as a result of the person’s deliberate action, and testing the person’s blood must be justified in all the circumstances.

Our role

The Ombudsman is required to monitor the operation and administration of the MDT Act, including the exercise of functions conferred on persons or bodies under the MDT Act.

We can obtain information about mandatory testing applications from agencies exercising powers under the MDT Act, as well as demographic information about the persons subject to MDT orders and applications for orders.

We are required to report on our monitoring as soon as practicable after 12 months of the commencement of the Act. This report is to be tabled in Parliament.

We are seeking public submissions

An important part of our monitoring is to consider the opinions and experiences of persons who may have been subject to an MDT order, or may have made an application for an MDT order. We are also interested in submissions from organisations who have advised or otherwise represented these persons.

The questions below may assist you to prepare your submission. You do not need to answer each question, and we welcome any additional considerations you are able to provide.

Questions

Have you been directly affected by, or involved in mandatory disease testing? In what capacity have you been affected or involved?
Can you describe what occurred, and the processes you were involved in?
Do you have any concerns about your experience?
Were there positive aspects to your experience? What were they?
Do you think the testing scheme protects and promotes the health and wellbeing of the workers who are able to apply for a MDT order? If so, in what way?
Do you think the scheme is harmful to individuals or groups subject of an MDT order? If so, in what way?
Do you have any views as to whether the mandatory testing scheme could be improved?

Is my submission confidential?

We will not publish the submissions received in their entirety, but we may use excerpts from the submissions in our report. No personal or health information about any individual will be disclosed, and the makers of the submission will not be identified unless you advise us that you are happy for us to do so.

We may contact you about your submissions if we need further information.

How to make a submission

Submissions can be made by:

online Mandatory Disease Testing submission form
email to: mdt@ombo.nsw.gov.au,
post - Level 24, 580 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000

Deadline for submissions

Due to limited time frames on our reporting , we will only be able to consider submissions received by 19 December 2023.