Today he was found guilty of charges of professional misconduct by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in relation to the 2020 convictions and suspended for two and a half years.
It’s not the first time the doctor has been before the tribunal or the courts for drink-driving.
The man previously faced misconduct charges in the tribunal for almost identical offending and was suspended for six months, censured, and had conditions imposed on him if he resumed practise, which he did not.
The doctor admitted at today’s hearing he was a recovering alcoholic who was very good at his job before he resigned but he couldn’t manage his mental health.
“I don’t want to make any excuses for my conduct... I now accept that I’ve got an alcohol substance disorder.
“And at that time I had just lost my marriage... my children, my home and I resorted to alcohol. I was drinking every day.”
He said he was in rehab when he took a van, drove it to buy alcohol, and drank in a parking lot to the point he could not remember driving back and causing the crash.
“I did drive drunk. I did crash. By some miracle, I didn’t kill anyone. My mental state was, and I don’t want to make excuses, I did those actions and I put people at harm and I take full responsibility for that.”
After he left rehab he continued drinking and five months later drove drunk, in another blackout, to the SkyCity casino where he had been trespassed previously.
The doctor said security guards would not let him in so he became belligerent and argumentative and threw water on them. He was then arrested.
The doctor said he was not practising when the offences happened however lawyer Findlay Biggs, for the Professional Conduct Committee, said that was immaterial because he was still registered.
Biggs submitted the doctor should be struck off because the latest offending was serious, was within a year of him being suspended by the tribunal for similar offending, and brought the medical profession into disrepute.
“Cancellation is the penalty which most appropriately protects the public and it does that by removing an unsafe practitioner from the profession and also makes clear to the profession that such conduct is unacceptable.”
The doctor said he wanted to get back to medicine, had come to terms with his alcoholism and was in recovery, having been sober for more than a year.
He described, in at-times emotional testimony, how afflicted he had been by addiction but a turning point was a close relative’s funeral because he got through it sober.
He said specific treatment for alcohol as well as kindness and compassion from others and finally from himself, had saved his life.
“My last thought [each night] as I was drunk and lying in bed was, ‘Please God don’t let me wake up in the morning’. And I used to wake up in the morning and live through the hell of another day.”
Realising he was not a bad or immoral person and accepting he was suffering from work burnout set the foundation for his recovery.
When asked by the tribunal if he was to practise again how he would deal with the stress of working in an emergency department, he said he had implemented a routine to keep himself mentally well, and was now able to recognise triggers.
He had a new job, new partner, and had his children back in his life. It was for his loved ones and his employability that he sought permanent name suppression.
He said “naming and shaming” would affect his mental health and could cause him anxiety and depression, put his sobriety at risk, and cause harm to his children.
“Publication of a health professional’s name is news. No one will care how you’ve transformed and the rehabilitative work you’ve done.”
Biggs opposed permanent name suppression and said there needed to be more compelling reasons not to name the doctor than embarrassment.
“Repeatedly drink driving will tend to lower one’s reputation and cause embarrassment.”
The tribunal declined permanent name suppression but said interim suppression would continue until it had published its written decision in about three months. He would then be able to appeal.
It decided not to cancel the doctor’s registration saying it believed he could make a valuable contribution to the medical profession if he chose to return, though he would be subject to various conditions.
Instead, the tribunal suspended the doctor for two and a half years but the suspension would not begin until the written decision was published.
The tribunal also ordered the doctor to pay 25 per cent, or $10,000 towards the cost of the hearing and PCC investigation.
Tribunal chairwoman Alison Douglass thanked the doctor for his frankness and honesty and commended him on his efforts to rehabilitate, saying his was a case where extreme effort had been made by the medical practitioner to turn his life around.
Natalie Akoorie is the Open Justice deputy editor, based in Waikato and covering crime and justice nationally. Natalie first joined the Herald in 2011 and has been a journalist in New Zealand and overseas for 27 years, recently covering health, social issues, local government, and the regions.
