The site where David Zimmerman botched a woman’s operation in Auckland’s Stanmore Bay is being touted for its “beachy vibes” in a real estate advert. Photo / Google, Jason Dorday
The site where David Zimmerman botched a woman’s operation in Auckland’s Stanmore Bay is being touted for its “beachy vibes” in a real estate advert. Photo / Google, Jason Dorday
A house used as a clinic by back-alley dentist David Zimmerman, recently sentenced for botching a woman’s operation and practising while banned, is up for a mortgagee sale auction this week.
The disgraced dentist, whom the DentalCouncil had already found was incompetent and put patients at risk in2014, pulled the wrong tooth from a woman without proper anaesthesia, leaving her with “off the charts” pain in 2022.
And now the Vipond Rd site where the woman’s ordeal happened in Auckland’s Stanmore Bay is being touted for its “beachy vibes” in a real estate advert.
“This is your chance to be a Stanmore Bay local,” agents Phillip Davis and Malcom Parker, of Barfoot & Thompson, wrote for the ad.
“This three-bedroom, 250 sq m property comprises a two-level home constructed of board and batten with a portion of weatherboard cladding, iron roofing and aluminium joinery, positioned on a frontage site zoned single house.
“From an exterior viewing, an office is attached to the right with its own separate entrance. A concrete driveway offers ample off-street parking.
“Local beaches, schooling, and shops are only a short drive away.”
Davis declined to speak to the Herald further about the sale or the property, and Parker could not be reached for comment.
Zimmerman, who has claimed to be a ‘sovereign citizen’, could not be reached.
The property’s rateable value was assessed to be $1.6 million last year after selling in 2003 for $545,000, property website OneRoof said.
David Zimmerman at North Shore District Court. His house and clinic is being auctioned in a mortgagee sale. Photo / Jason Dorday
The property will be auctioned at 2pm on Wednesday. An open home was held yesterday.
Zimmerman’s website, which was still online at the time of publishing, said patients could expect treatment “in a caring and safe environment”.
“We believe in providing treatment that allows the body to heal by itself, reducing the need for surgery and producing long-term results,” the website reads.
“Pain can become a constant companion, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
He had at least five victims. At Zimmerman’s sentencing at the North Shore District Court, Judge Paul Murray described the impact on them as “wide-ranging and serious”.
Another woman needed remedial work done on an “excessively painful” filling which never settled afterwards, court documents showed.
And another needed stitches for a hole in her cheek from a suction hose during a wisdom tooth extraction.
A fourth woman was concerned about the apparently poor state of Zimmerman’s surgical equipment.
She bled during treatment and had a “distressing and frightening” wait for blood test results after. A fifth was at a low point in her life when she got treatment from Zimmerman, but it left her feeling worse.
David Zimmerman's property will be auctioned on Wednesday.
The property site where David Zimmerman practised is being touted for its “beachy vibes”.
In March 2023, the Ministry of Health’s enforcement team helped police in a search of Zimmerman’s premises.
He was present and when given his Bill of Rights, he showed police a “Sovereign National of Aotearoa” identity card, the summary of facts said.
The search found instruments inside an autoclave (steam steriliser) in brown paper bags.
There was no evidence of a colour change, indicating that the instruments had been through a sterilising process.
On a bench top near the autoclave, there were four used local anaesthetic cartridges, plus three vials of the prescription item lignocaine, which was not typically found in a dental surgery, the summary of facts said.
Old plastic milk containers were being used as “sharps” containers and pre-loaded local anaesthetic syringes were found in a drawer behind the dental chair.
The cartridges in the preloaded syringes were not all full.
While the search was under way, a courier delivered a package containing root canal treatment cement.
Zimmerman continued to operate his dental practice, even after his premises were searched, which led to multiple charges against him and two charges against his business.
He eventually admitted one representative charge of using words and descriptions that stated or implied he was a dentist, based on signage outside his property.
He admitted a further representative charge of claiming to be a practising health practitioner when he saw patients between December 2022 and September 2023.
The charge covered five instances of Zimmerman performing a restricted activity without permission.
The centre pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing and managing a radiation source, namely, an X-ray machine, without a licence, which Zimmerman used twice.
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers business, breaking news and local stories from Tāmaki Makaurau. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.
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