Medical couple accused of ‘delusions’

Press, 25 July 1984, Page 3

Medical couple accused of ‘delusions’

PA Auckland A doctor’s dossier on Dr lan Duncan and his wife, Dr Anne Worsnop, of Whangamata, accused both of suffering from mental disability.

The double diagnosis of “chronic paranoia delusions” was made by the Medical Officer of Health at Hamilton, Dr John Penniket, who has never met either Dr Duncan or' Dr Worsnop. Dr Duncan used the Official Information Act to get the dossier which, in April this year, caused the New Zealand Medical Council to order him to see a psychiatrist or face suspension from being a doctor. Extracts from the dossier, sent to a newspaper by Dr Duncan, showed that Dr Penniket partly based his double diagnosis of the doctors’ mental health on a 1982 dispute the doctors had with the local pharmacist. Because Whangamata is a retirement community with 60 per cent of the population aged over 60, the doctors wanted the pharmacist to stock- large quantities of injectable narcotics. The pharmacist was reluctant to do this. Other evidence included an argument between the doctors and a former receptionist and the doctors’ stocking of large quantities of iodine to protect the Whangamata population against thyroid cancer in the event of a nuclear incident involving New Zealand. In his dossier, Dr Penniket said that he did not have enough evidence to

commit Dr Duncan to a psychiatric institution but, in his opinion, Dr Duncan was mentally disabled and unable to perform his duties. The same could be said of his wife, Dr Penniket said. Last May, the Medical Council dropped its charge of mental disability against Dr Duncan, who had continued to refuse to see a psychiatrist. Dr Duncan said that he, and now his wife, were victims of the worst kind of character assassination by the council, which he contended wanted him silenced for speaking publicly about cases where the reputations of senior medical people were allegedly put before the public safety. Dr Duncan attracted national attention last March when he was censured and fined by the doctors’ disciplinary committee for making public a schoolbus driver’s history of heart disease.

The man was later banned from driving.