Doctor double dips

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A disgraced senior doctor has been forced to repay more than $143,000 after being found double-dipping and neglecting patients for 4 years.

Waikato District Health Board has recovered the amount from the doctor who was paid as a fulltime employee - while working two days each week in a private practice.

The behaviour was discovered only after a member of the public tipped off the health board on the national fraud hotline.

After an investigation, the doctor resigned from the hospital position and is believed to be working overseas, said health board spokeswoman Mary Anne Gill.

In September 2009, a woman became concerned when the doctor authorised to discharge her daughter from hospital was seemingly unavailable for two days.

She rang the fraud hotline to air her concerns.

The Ministry of Health, which runs the hotline, alerted the health board which investigated.

The board recovered the money after a long legal process, said Gill

It is believed the doctor rescheduled appointments to avoid patient clashes, but it was not clear how the behaviour went undetected for several years, said Gill.

"That's a fair question and that's something we have to ask ourselves," she said.

"What we've discovered is we weren't quite as vigilant ourselves."

It cost $23,000 to recover the $143,400, which included hiring private investigators, said Gill.

A confidentiality agreement meant they could not identify the doctor.

General secretary of the Resident Doctors' Association Deborah Powell said the doctor was one of many senior doctors who engage in private work "on the side". She accused district health boards of turning a blind eye.

"It's certainly not uncommon. Health boards have condoned it as a mechanism for boosting [senior doctors'] pay, quite frankly." she said.

The lines between public and private work needed to be far more clearly defined and issues openly and honestly discussed, particularly with talk of greater public-private partnerships within the health system, she said. "We've going to have to be very clear about accountability."

By allowing consultant doctors to take on private work, the health boards were saving money while the doctors could be "rewarded properly".

But the problem, she said, was that resident doctors and remaining doctors were having to pick up the slack.

Since the fraud hotline started in 1996 there have been about 50 prosecutions - a third of which were helped by callers. These have included pharmacists, contractors and rest home owners. The fraud hotline number is 0800 424 888.