The peak body for sonographers is calling for the industry to be regulated after an at-home ultrasound operator gave fake pictures to expectant mothers.
Rawinia Hayes was ordered to pay nearly $10,000 in fines and costs in the Bunbury Magistrates Court after she conducted ultrasounds on six pregnant women and gave them pictures that were not of their babies.
The court heard Ms Hayes bought an ultrasound machine and had been conducting the scans for over three years despite not receiving any formal training.
The ABC revealed in January 2014 that several women had received identical ultrasound images. They learned of the deception after sharing photos of their scans on a local community Facebook group.
Australasian Sonographers Association CEO Stephen Duns said the industry needed to be regulated so inappropriate operators could be banned.
“This is absolutely a case that demonstrates the need for some form of legislated registration of sonographers and until we have that there’s going to be risk of this happening again,” he said.
“All health practitioners should be legislated and be registered under some legislative system.
“It’s ridiculous that some are and some aren’t, and every other diagnostic imaging profession is registered and sonography for no good reason is not registered.
“My belief is if people understood that their wives and their daughters and their sisters and their mothers are having these sorts of diagnostic processes with a profession that’s not registered they’d be horrified.”
Dr Duns said sonography was a relatively new profession and the regulatory framework had not caught up.
He said those who had not been properly trained ran the risk of failing to identify health problems in unborn babies.
“There is always a risk of that happening with anyone, and the problem is if that happens consistently there is currently no mechanism whereby a sonographer can be removed from the profession,” he said.