Stalker torments doctors

By ALAN PERROTT

Three New Plymouth doctors have spent five years coping with a menace usually associated with the rich and famous - stalking.

Their problems began when Coral Beadle, a self-professed disabled rights activist from Oakura, visited Dr Matthew Allen's surgery complaining of an ailment she put down to voice strain.

The 44-year-old later began posting a flood of letters about Dr Allen to medical bodies, her landlord in Oakura, Dr Allen's wife and his patients.

Finally, in November 1999, the High Court ordered her to stop harassing Dr Allen and his family.

But she was back in court last year on a charge of intimidation and two charges of threatening to kill two other New Plymouth doctors, Lynette White and Lesley Rothwell.

She was refused bail because the doctors and their families were afraid she would harass them further.

The charges were dismissed in the Wellington District Court on March 21, when Judge Margaret Lee decided Beadle was too ill to defend herself during a four-day trial after a 100-day hunger strike in prison.

She pleaded not to be taken away for treatment and discharged herself from Wellington Hospital that night. New Plymouth police will not say where she is or if they are tracking her activities.

Such cases can ruin careers and, in extreme cases, have cost doctors their lives, says a report in this month's Medical Journal of Australia.

Harassment is usually hidden because medical professionals are reluctant to seek police help, the report says.

The authors, Drs Michele Pathe, Paul Mullen and Rosemary Purcell, say any activity with the potential to end medical careers should concern any country struggling to recruit doctors.

Dr Mullen, a specialist in stalking behaviour, says the medical profession is over-represented among victims of stalking.

Doctors are especially vulnerable as lonely and mentally unstable people can mistake a doctor's care and attention for a romantic attachment, and angry patients or their relatives stalk doctors they feel have mistreated them.

Dr Phil Brinded, an associate professor of forensic psychiatry at Christchurch Hospital, hopes to replicate the Australian study because no one has looked at the patterns and rates of stalking in this country.

"There is anecdotal evidence within medical circles, but I have never struck it in 20 years of practice.

"Stalking doesn't happen very frequently, although research suggests that harassment within the community is more common than we believe. A lot just isn't reported."

Dr John Adams, chairman of the New Zealand Medical Association, says the patient-doctor bond is a natural part of treatment.

"It's when that link becomes too intense and threatens the boundaries of the proper relationship - then it becomes extremely difficult for the doctor, and the patient, for that matter."

He would expect most doctors to first approach other doctors rather than the police.

In Britain, a survey of mental health counsellors found 20 per cent of respondents had suffered some harassment. But only 10 per cent of those felt they were a victim of crime and only 1 per cent reported the incident to police.

Graham Jenkins, director of the Counselling in Primary Care Trust in Britain, says that attitude must change.

In an editorial on the trust's website, he says such behaviour cannot be excused on the grounds of a patient's distress or that it was to be expected.

"It is only a question of time before a counsellor is attacked or seriously injured. No panic button, guideline or protocol can protect anyone from the risk of sudden and violent acts by patients."