High Court clears doctor of last professional charge

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

Dr Graham Parry has got his medical career back on track at Middlemore Hospital, after he was rocked by becoming one of New Zealand's most investigated doctors.

Following four years of being subjected to medical, legal and parliamentary scrutiny, Dr Parry has been cleared of all but one of the professional charges against him - the one that triggered an avalanche of complaints from aggrieved former patients.

The finding of disgraceful conduct for his substandard care of Colleen Poutsma in the 1990s stands against Dr Parry despite his legal appeals.

But in a High Court ruling on the last of the five cases, Justice Paul Heath has dismissed a finding of unbecoming conduct against Dr Parry arising from his treatment of another Northland woman.

This ends a legal battle that began at the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in 2000 and which contributed to changes designed to streamline the medical complaints system.

Prior to Mrs Poutsma's case, Dr Parry was involved in three others since 1992 under the disciplinary system then run by the Medical Council. It has said one was not proven, two were "not substantive enough" for a hearing and it has no record of a fourth referred by ACC.

Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson, whose director of proceedings took Mrs Poutsma's case to the tribunal, last week said doctors were being scared out of practice by hostile media publicity during complaint investigations.

After Mrs Poutsma recounted Dr Parry's poor care of her, first on TV3 and then at the tribunal, 50 of his former patients alleged mistreatment.

At her Auckland hospice bedside, her husband, Jack, read Mrs Poutsma's emotional testimony against Dr Parry in a room packed with tribunal members, lawyers and reporters.

She returned to her Bay of Islands home and, aged 48, died in 2001 of the cervical cancer which Dr Parry, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, had at first failed to diagnose.

Finding Dr Parry guilty, the tribunal fined him and struck him off the medical register. But on appeal, the fine was reduced and he was allowed to practise obstetrics and ultrasound under supervision.

The complaints led to four more tribunal cases - and a health select committee inquiry, after the Alliance and Greens failed to persuade the Government to set up a ministerial investigation on the scale of the Gisborne cervical cancer inquiry.

The committee found Dr Parry's rate of adverse outcomes was within international standards.

Dr Parry declined to be interviewed. His lawyer, Harry Waalkens, said the various inquiries had taken a "ghastly toll on Dr Parry and his family", but he was now doing well at Middlemore Hospital, where he performs ultra-sound scans on pregnant women.

"He was the victim of a very unfair and over-the-top witch hunt. The results he's had with the disciplinary tribunal and appeals would verify that."

Middlemore's chief medical officer, Dr Ian Brown, said the hospital had benefited greatly from having Dr Parry's combination of obstetric and ultrasound skills, a rarity among New Zealand doctors.


The verdicts

* Graham Parry faced a medical tribunal five times from 2000.Inadequate care of Colleen Poutsma, who later died of cervical cancer. Tribunal: guilty of disgraceful conduct. High Court: agrees, but reduces penalty.

* Poor care of a woman who developed serious complications after birth. Tribunal: guilty of unbecoming conduct. High Court: charge dismissed.

* Failing to adequately examine a patient suffering abnormal vaginal bleeding. Tribunal: guilty of unbecoming conduct. Auckland District Court: verdict set aside.

* Deficient management of a woman with lichen sclerosis, a skin condition. Tribunal: not guilty of professional misconduct.

* Failing to obtain a woman's consent before performing a major operation and not consulting a urologist about her condition until much later. Tribunal: not guilty of professional misconduct.