Doctors are still having to fight in the Courts to have their licences, integrity & patient-doctor priviledge protected against bureaucratic Departments that use LawFare to beat down dissenting points of view!
Section 34A Misused: A Doctor Targeted Without Complaint
My so-called crime? During an unlawful “emergency” hearing, I mentioned prescribing ivermectin to 20–30 patients—a detail unrelated to any complaint. No patient, family member, or pharmacist lodged a lawful grievance. Yet, the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) in New South Wales seized on this to unleash a campaign of harassment and intimidation.
It began with a mysterious third file—absent from the hearing, never disclosed to me, never served, and unsupported by any complainant. It appeared only in fine print on their paperwork. When challenged, the HCCC admitted it referred to a “forthcoming” complaint that never materialized. Still, they invoked Section 34A of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993 (NSW) to demand private medical records from those 20–30 patients—without their consent, without warning, and without legal grounds.
Section 34A allows the HCCC to compel documents only after a valid complaint is accepted for investigation. Without one, their demands were a fishing expedition akin to the FBI or NSA fabricating grounds for surveillance in regimes where due process is a sham. This isn’t how a civil society functions. Not through a public health agency.
The HCCC learned of the prescriptions at the emergency hearing and wanted those records but initially overlooked requesting them. They lacked any legal authority to demand them. Some time later, they began demanding the files, but by then, I no longer possessed them—the patients had requested their return, and I complied. Still, the HCCC pressed on, threatening $22,000 fines or 12 months in prison to access records from patients who explicitly withheld consent.
For over a year, I endured relentless pressure—letters, threats, and coercion that shattered my peace of mind, leaving me with trauma I now recognize as PTSD. Now, the HCCC claims I breached Section 34A by not complying with their baseless demands. They aim to find me guilty of professional misconduct, cancel my medical license, impose thousands in fines, and—despite being a taxpayer-funded agency with no justified basis for prosecuting me—demand I pay their prosecution costs. Why should a government agency force a doctor to fund an unfounded persecution?
This isn’t regulation. It’s persecution. The HCCC has abandoned its legal limits, forsaking procedural fairness for bureaucratic abuse. My story lays bare how institutions can destroy a doctor’s life—not for wrongdoing, but for ideology and unchecked power.
- Dr My Le Trinh