The Health and Disability Commissioner has apologised to Philip Polkinghorne’s former lover Madison Ashton for ignoring her 2021 warnings about the eye surgeon’s drug use and behaviour, the Herald can reveal.
Ashton said she was “snubbed” when she approached the commissioner about her then-lover.
“I was trying to do the right thing,” Ashton said.
Ashton’s email to the Health and Disability Commissioner, with the subject: Welfare of Dr Philip John Polkinghorne, was sent on June 15, 2021.
In it, the escort requested a confidential phone conversation or online meeting to discuss Polkinghorne’s substance use and behaviour – but never received a response.
On Friday, the Health and Disability Commissioner sent a statement to the Herald that said: “The email when received should have been forwarded directly to the Medical Council of New Zealand [MCNZ].
“Unfortunately due to administrative error by a receiving staff member, the email was misfiled and did not reach the MCNZ. We recognise that this is an error in our process, for which we are sorry, and offer our genuine apologies to Ms Ashton.”
The commissioner said the watchdog had now updated its processes to prevent such errors in the future.
At the time, Polkinghorne was on bereavement leave from his role as a surgeon at Auckland Eye after his wife’s death in April 2021 and had resigned from the board in May. It would be more than a year before he would be charged in August 2022 with her murder.
That same month Deb Boyd, at the time the chief executive of Auckland Eye, told the Herald the eye clinic was reviewing Polkinghorne’s recent clinical practice. “We are in the process of appointing an independent clinical expert to assist in this review,” she said.
Since July 1, 2019, there have been six complaints about Auckland Eye to HDC. Two of those complaints are currently open and under assessment. None of the complaints relates to Polkinghorne.
In September, after an eight-week trial in the High Court at Auckland, Polkinghorne was acquitted of murdering his wife, Pauline Hanna. On Friday, Polkinghorne was sentenced to 150 hours of community work for possessing 37.7g of methamphetamine.
Ashton told the Herald she was not surprised at the community service sentence. “I was prepared for the verdict because the police never took it seriously when I told them about the drugs,” she said.
The trial heard evidence from Dr Susan Ormonde, the clinical director at Auckland Eye and a former colleague of Polkinghorne’s, that he had disclosed he had been taking methamphetamine and suggested she try some too.
”He asked if we’d ever tried meth, [to] which we said ‘no’ and he said, ‘you should’,” Ormonde said at trial.
Evidence was also heard from Auckland Eye employee Janet Wigmore, who was “showing the ropes” to two staff members when she walked into the office complex’s retinal laser room and found something she’d never seen: a methamphetamine pipe and lighter on a table immediately to the right of the entrance.
“Just as I walked in ... there was a little sort of brownish-top table, immediately on your right as you come through the doorway. There was a glass pipe and a lighter, but it wasn’t like a small Bic lighter, it was a chunky thing that was about the size of the palm of my hand,” she said at trial.
Operations manager Tracey Molloy told the court “Sweet Puff” was written on the side of the pipe.
The trial disclosed methamphetamine testing revealed concerning levels of the drug at Polkinghorne’s workplace, suggesting it had been used there.
After Polkinghorne’s acquittal for murder in September, a former patient at Auckland Eye
emailed the Herald expressing anger Polkinghorne had used drugs and potentially put his patients at risk.
The longtime client of the eye clinic, who didn’t want to be named, said she no longer wanted to remain a patient.
“The steps taken relating to ... Polkinghorne’s use of drugs and his addiction were woefully inadequate and left your employees and patients exposed,” she wrote.
“The sad fact here is that you all let your personal relationships with this man to overrule what, as doctors, you all must have known to be true.”
The woman said her concerns have been referred to the board at Auckland Eye.
When asked about the letter, and whether other patients had also left the clinic, Auckland Eye’s marketing manager Marie Dickinson said in a statement on Friday, “None of our doctors had any idea of the activities of Dr Polkinghorne, nor his drug use.
“Both came as a complete shock to them and our wider team. When the Auckland Eye board became aware of Dr Polkinghorne’s drug use in 2021, immediate action was taken. Dr Polkinghorne came off the board and his involvement with the practice ceased.
“Auckland Eye then appointed an independent vitreo-retinal expert to undertake a comprehensive clinical review of his patients. This review found no concerns regarding patient care. In addition, the matter was reported appropriately to the Medical Council.
“We believe our response at the time was both swift and appropriate.”
Carolyne Meng-Yee is an Auckland-based investigative journalist who won Best Documentary at the Voyager Media Awards in 2022. She worked for the Herald on Sunday from 2007-2011 and rejoined the Herald in 2016 after working as an award-winning current affairs producer at TVNZ’s 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Sunday.
One person was taken into custody at the scene.