Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a statutory agency with a role of providing reliable health data to the Australian and Government and public. Advocacy Better working conditions From early in his career Haikerwal has advocated for better conditions for medical staff. As a representative of junior doctors in the Southern Trent Region of England, he facilitated a meeting in 1989 with Members of Parliament to discuss concerns about the long hours of work. Haikerwal told the meeting that doctors were commonly working 72 hours a week, or longer, [making]..."life or death decisions when sometimes [they] are too tired to talk properly." The doctors used various publicity stunts to draw public attention to the issues, which Haikerwal described as being mostly the risk to patient safety. He said it was about "changing some practices and organising time better", in the context of Regional Health Authorities guidelines being that "junior doctors should not work more than 104 hours a week, or 48 hour continuously." By June 1990 a move to have a survey on social action for a shorter week was approved by the British Medical Association junior doctors committee, and on 2 July 1990, it was confirmed that authorised surveys would be sent out to all junior doctors in England to discover if they were prepared to take industrial action. Recalling his time at Leicester General Hospital, he later told The Age newspaper: "If you want someone to work hard, pay them properly and give them good conditions. If you've got doctors that are working and happy, they'll do a better job. And the patients will benefit at the end of the day, too." Health and safety of medical staff When a gunman shot and killed a security guard in 2001 after storming into an abortion clinic in Australia, while an anti-abortion group was demonstrating nearby, Haikerwal expressed concern that this reflected growing levels of violence against any medical staff, "whether at hospitals, private clinics or other health-related clinics." In his role as President of the Australian Medical Association Haikerwal campaigned for improvements in how emotional trauma for young doctors is managed. The suicide of a trainee surgeon in Australia in 2006 highlighted the emotional stresses placed upon doctors and Haikerwal said that a survey of junior doctors on the numbers of hours they worked had not shown much improvement since a survey conducted four years previously. He concluded that