Overflowing petitions to save local GP from deregistration

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDSep 1 2010

General Practitioner Dr Rajendra Moodley has helped hundreds of people in his care during his tenure. After being deregistered by the Medical Board of Australia last Friday, his patients are rising to appeal the deregistration decision. Dr. Moodley is a South African trained doctor whose deregistration has come as a shock to many of his patients whose care will be hampered. If the board sticks to its decision and a legal battle to revoke it fails, the GP would lose his temporary visa and he, along with his wife and two young children, will be forced to move overseas.

His patients have started a petition calling for a reversal of the medical board's decision. According to staff at Stellar Medical Lowood – where Dr Moodley worked, by Monday there were already 20 pages of names on the petition. The doctor’s lawyers are seeking a stay on the decision and will lodge an application with the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Member for Blair Shayne Neumann also promised to pursue the matter with the State Minister for Health Paul Lucas and do all he could to help Dr Moodley keep practicing.

According to a spokeswoman from the Medical Board of Australia, this step was to protect the community. “The board makes every decision about the registration of a medical practitioner carefully…For doctors with limited registration, the board must decide if the individual doctor has the skills, qualifications and experience to provide safe care to Australian patients in a particular role,” she said. The board cannot at present disclose the reasons for their decision due to privacy concerns she said. However the board is said to have found that despite 18 years of practicing medicine including six in Australia, Dr. Moodley rated “unsatisfactory” in the fields of medical interviewing skills, physical examination skills and “familiarity with social and cultural issues and idioms”.

Dr Moodley says he had failed two Medical Board tests allowing him to practise in Australia. One was a written test. The other involved an hour-long interview with three clinicians. He said, “This opinion of three doctors within one hour that will decide my fate and I think it's a very unfair way of assessing a doctor who's practising for 18 years.” Dr Paul Crowley runs the medical centre where Dr Moodley was working. And he said he has never had a complaint about his colleague. Dr. Moodley at present is planning to resit his exams.