Doctor may face further charges

Press, 10 July 1985, Page 2

Doctor may face further charges

The police may bring further charges against the doctor who appeared in the District Court last Friday charged with stealing drugs. The doctor has been suspended from the Medical Register by the New Zealand Medical Council. He is free on bail pending another court appearance on July 19. Detectives were still reviewing the case, and it was possible that further charges would be laid, said a C. 1.8. spokesman yesterday.

The chairman of the Medical Council, Dr Stuart Alexander, said yesterday that the doctor, who was granted interim suppression of his name, had been suspended from the register on Friday. “The council’s approach is that we are treating him as a sick doctor,” he said. The doctor had 28 days to lodge an aappeal against the suspension, said Dr Alexander.

If he did not lodge an appeal, the doctor could apply for a variation of the suspension, or a lifting of it, in which case he would have to convince the council that he was fit to practise. Dr Alexander said the suspension was not affected by the outcome of the charges laid against the doctor by the police. “If he is cleared he still has to convince us that he is fit to practise,” he said. Should the doctor be convicted, the council’s preliminary proceedings committee would investigate the possibility of a disciplinary charge being brought against him. “It all depends on what the evidence is in court, what he is charged with, and the outcome of the case,” Dr Alexander said. The doctor is charged with stealing five ampules of morphine and one ampule of diazepan from another person on June 7. He was remanded on bail of $750 to July 19, without plea.