A Sydney doctor who prescribed a "destructive" mix of powerful painkillers and anti-depressants to her sick, drug-dependent partner before he died from an overdose, has been banned for 18 months.
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When Dr Annette Do's de facto partner Daniel Siebler developed excruciating cluster headaches in July 2006 she began prescribing him with a cocktail of addictive drugs, including morphine and pethidine, and the anti-depressant, amitriptyline.
A recent court judgment reveals that, even though the doctor's partner was seeing specialists for his condition, she disregarded much of their advice and engaged in a course of treatment that was "erratic, contradictory, irresponsible and destructive".
This involved giving her partner "multi anti-migraine medications, four different anti-psychotics and three benzodiazepines all of which work on the central nervous system," a NSW Court of Appeal judgment states.
"No clearer example [of the poor treatment] can be given than her decision to embark upon treating Mr Siebler with amitriptyline."
"In doing so she knew that he: was dependent on opiates; had overdosed recently on such medication; and had unresolved psychological, if not psychiatric, issues.
After Siebler died, the Health Care Complaints Commission took Dr Do before the NSW Medical Tribunal seeking to have her banned from practising for 18 months to two years.
Dr Do denied she was her partner's treating general practitioner. She said she was doing so only as a "facilitator or co-ordinator for his real primary medical practitioners".
She also said she felt "trapped" because Siebler had a "severe phobia of hospitals and doctors" and refused to take medical advice.
The Medical Tribunal largely rejected this evidence, but two of the four-member panel did not accept the commission's argument that the doctor should be suspended.
They argued that there was "no evidence to suggest that Dr Do's quite obvious failings in relation to Mr Siebler are more widely based; and that the public could be adequately protected by the imposition of rigorous conditions, including a requirement that she be the subject of … supervision".
The tribunal ordered that Dr Do could revive her lapsed registration at any time as long as she was supervised.
But the Court of Appeal has overturned the decision, banning the doctor for 18 months.
""The objective of protecting the health and safety of the public is not confined to protecting the patients of a particular practitioner from the continuing risk of his or her misconduct, but includes protecting the public from similar misconduct of other practitioners and upholding public confidence in the medical profession," the three-judge appeal panel found.
"That objective is achieved, where appropriate, by cancelling the registration of practitioners who are not competent or otherwise not fit to practise. Denouncing misconduct acts as both a specific and general deterrent and maintains public confidence in the profession."
