An unusual set of circumstances in Health Care Complaints Commission v Windsor [2019] NSWCATOD 149 (available on Caselaw) saw the Tribunal cancel the registration of a general practitioner, who had initially attended for an interview with her husband / practice manager. The interview followed a complaint to the Commission which made a number of allegations (at [5]), including:
- Dr Windsor visits nursing homes until the early hours of the morning and then practises at a medical practice during the day.
- Dr Windsor does not understand her own safety or that of her patients.
- Dr Windsor has been seen wearing the same clothes for a week.
- Dr Windsor has been sleeping in her car or in the nursing home she visits.
- Dr Windsor eats dinner at the homes she visits.
- Dr Windsor sometimes sees nursing home residents late at night when they are asleep.
- Dr Windsor interferes in her clients’ lives and also in the management of the nursing home.
- Dr Windsor “influences her clients’ so that she can get more clients to provide her medical service too” [sic].
- Dr Windsor issues prescriptions to her clients without proper consultations.
- Dr Windsor abuses the prescription of medication to her clients.
The role of the husband appears to have been significant. At [11] the Tribunal noted:
Dr Windsor was very quiet during the interview, and when she spoke her husband repeatedly told her not to say anything, and he terminated the interview at a time when Dr Windsor told the interviewers that she wished to proceed. Mr Windsor was belligerent, paranoid and angry. He raised his voice and seemed preoccupied by the persecutory and somewhat bizarre beliefs outlined above, which appeared to be of a delusional nature. Mr Windsor’s thought form appeared disjointed and was difficult to follow at times. Mr Windsor struck his wife on the shoulder and demanded that she leave with him. The interview was then terminated.
The beliefs referred to in the quoted passage above were that Mr Windsor believed that there is a plot against him, his wife and two children and that the decision of the HCCC to convene the Health Interview was part of a “bigger issue”. He believed that he is a target because of a web page he has written about “Atlantian Genocide”, a discovery he recently made. He told the Interviewers that people were after him and his family and that they were in danger.
Given his involvement in the events leading up to the complaint, the absence of any training which would equip him to advise Dr Windsor in a manner likely to assist her and his plain desire to use the proceedings to expound his theories and beliefs, Mr Windsor was not given leave to represent Dr Windsor (at [38]). Dr Windsor did not appear at the hearing of the matter ([41]).
On the basis of the general practitioners later refusal to undergo psychiatric evaluation, which was reasonably required on account of her behaviour throughout the events leading to these proceedings, the Tribunal determined that Dr Windsor is not presently competent to practice as a general practitioner within the meaning of s 149C(1)(a) of the National Law.