GP banned despite top reports

Lowood general practitioner Rajendra Moodley has been deregistered despite glowing references.

Sarah Harvey

HUNDREDS of patients are backing a campaign to save the career of a popular South African-born GP.

Dr Rajendra Moodley, who has been at Stellar Medical Lowood for the past six years, last Friday received a phone call advising him that he had been deregistered and must stop working immediately.

The Medical Board of Australia decision will affect hundreds of patients who rely on Dr Moodley each week.

The decision came after Dr Moodley was subjected to an hour-long Structured Clinical Interview with three doctors from the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) in June this year.

Despite 18 years practising medicine – including six in Australia – the college rated Dr Moodley as “unsatisfactory” in the fields of medical interviewing skills, physical examination skills and “familiarity with social and cultural issues and idioms”.

Serious doubts have been cast over the integrity of the interview process.

Nevertheless, the poor result was followed by a letter from the then Medical Board of Queensland, asking Dr Moodley to show cause as to why his application for registration should not be refused.

He was able to provide the board with glowing references from the principal GP at Stellar Medical, Dr Paul Crowley, and other practitioners who warned the board that patients would suffer if Dr Moodley wasn’t allowed to stay.

Dr Moodley also passed a portion of his examinations with the Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) – but the Medical Board’s decision didn’t change.

A shattered Dr Moodley said his lawyers were applying for a stay on the decision that would allow him to keep practising until the matter could be taken to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

“I would have thought that after getting five references and finding out that I’d passed the second portion of the exam that that would be enough for the medical board to allow me to keep practicing,” he said.

“I think the board could have handled this process more delicately.”

A petition circulated around Lowood has already attracted the signatures of more than 400 angry locals.

There are more than 43,000 patients on the medical centre’s records and Dr Moodley is one of six GPs at the centre, seeing about 250 patients a week.

Stellar Medical principal Dr Paul Crowley said the Medical Board had completely ignored his pleas to let Dr Moodley keep working.

“It seems an hour-long interview carries more weight than six years of work in the Lowood community,” Dr Crowley said.

Dr Moodley failed the applied knowledge test component of the RACGP fellowship examinations by a margin of less than 1 per cent but re-sat the exam this month – he is confidently awaiting the results.

Federal Member for Blair Shayne Neumann said he thought the medical board’s decision was “preposterous” given the doctor shortage in rural areas.

He said he had serious doubts over the reasoning the board gave for their decision.

“There’s no evidence at all and they’ve given no real reasons for their decision,” Mr Neumann said.