Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
Not telling CASA Avmed is not the same as not obtaining proper and successful medical care. As the Abstract of the study notes above, plenty of pilots seek what the study calls "informal medical care".
The laws of physics mean that there is no causal connection between Avmed's levels of knowledge or ignorance of a person's medical history and that person's level of medical fitness. A person's level of medical fitness is what it is.
There are plenty of pilots out there who are not obliged to tell Avmed anything and about whom Avmed knows nothing, and those pilots meet the aviation medical standards. They just don't have a piece of squashed tree from Avmed saying so.
(Note: I am not advocating that people should withhold information from Avmed.)
The problem you have there is that it is a legal requirement to disclose your medical issues to CASA, and then for CASA to decide whether you are legal to fly. So in any case where you have a condition that AvMed deems you require surveillance and you are not under that surveillance program and signed off you are not legally able to exercise your privileges of your CASA licence. So being medically (un)fit is determined by CASA and the pilot can only determine their fitness for duty in absence of any medical condition that is deemed disqualifying. Then they bring in in Aviation that negligence is not a defense, as you should have reported all medical conditions as soon as apparent and you are educated on air law by examination, so are qualified to read and understand your requirements as a license holder.
Aviation IS all fun and games, until somebody gets hurt, then its lawyers and economics....
BTW, your road license has similar conditions that you must report all long term medical conditions that may affect your driving ability to the issuing authority, and have a supporting doctors report on it. If you have an accident where an undisclosed long term medical issue was part responsible, good luck in court.
PS I'm all for fighting the aviation medical system, however my feeling is 'non-disclosure' is what AvMed secretly wants, then they don't have to make decisions or be liable for what happens if there is an accident. Make things hard for everybody, nobody wants to disclose, not our problem, it'll be their problem if it causes a crash. A version of the US DADT (don't ask don't tell) policy.