A GP who called Australia’s first Indigenous ophthalmologist “a fake Aboriginal”, comparing him to “a watered-down bottle of Grange”, has been struck off after what AHPRA calls a landmark case.
The decision of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal to strike off the GP for at least 12 months followed last year’s National Law changes that added the elimination of racism in healthcare as an underlying principle.
“This means that culturally unsafe, racist practice cannot be ignored by regulatory decision-makers, including the independent tribunals who decide matters of professional misconduct,” AHPRA said in a statement on the case.
The tribunal heard that the GP, whose name was suppressed, sent an email to ophthalmologist Dr Kristopher Rallah-Baker — whom he had never met — in July 2022.
“I see you claim to be Indigenous,” it read.
“So does Australia’s richest man, Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest of Fortesque Mining — worth about $37 billion dollars — because he once befriended an Aboriginal (see Wikipedia).
“You seem to have a bit more Aboriginal in you than him, but you are not full blood; are you? Half? Quarter? One eight [sic]?
“Like a watered-down bottle of Grange — not the real thing.”
He went on to call the PBS Closing the Gap initiatives, which cut PBS co-payments for Indigenous patients at the prescriber’s discretion, “a sick joke that we taxpayers have to fund” that “explains the 25% hike in ‘Aboriginals’ in the last census”.
Dr Rallah-Baker notified AHPRA about the email.
According to the case’s agreed statement of facts, when an AHPRA investigator phoned the GP, he called Dr Rallah-Baker a “dickhead” and “half blood” who was “riding the Aboriginal bandwagon”.
“This is a trivial complaint. The board is a pack of f*wits,” he added.
Three days later, he emailed AHPRA, saying: “You can tell the fake Aboriginal that, if he does not withdraw his complaint and grow some balls, I will not be donating my AHPRA annual rip-off fee come the end of September.”
He also told AHPRA he had refused to add a Closing the Gap note on the PBS script for a four-year-old because “the child doesn’t look very Aboriginal, and there is nothing to indicate he is Aboriginal on his file”.
The child’s father became “very upset” and shouted at the GP.
Ahead of the tribunal hearing, the GP admitted that his statements to Dr Rallah-Baker and the AHPRA investigator were “culturally unsafe, insulting and offensive” and that denying to use Closing the Gap provisions on the PBS script reflected his “entrenched beliefs” about Aboriginal identification.
He said he had let his registration lapse and was not planning to reapply for registration.
Psychiatrist Professor Mark Walterfang, who provided an expert report on the GP’s mental state, said the GP had decided to send the email after reading about the PBS Closing the Gap policy in the media.
He said the GP had “a personality with cognitive rigidity and a difficulty in understanding others’ emotional responses to his actions” and that he “struggled to understand the effect of his actions on others”.
Lawyers issued an apology to Dr Rallah-Baker on the GP’s behalf.
However, the tribunal said there was no other evidence the GP had contrition for his actions, and there remained “a risk that the respondent may reoffend if faced with similar circumstances”.
It banned the GP from reapplying for registration for at least 12 months as a “general deterrence for the profession, and specific deterrence for the respondent, from engaging in similar conduct”.
