A FORMER senior psychiatrist at the Launceston General Hospital has lost his practising licence for having an affair with a New Zealand patient, which continued when she followed him from New Zealand to Tasmania.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The finding was handed down this week by a New Zealand medical disciplinary tribunal.
Dr Manilall Maharajh was the clinical director of mental health services at the LGH from November 28, 2008, to December 31, 2010.
Six months before taking up the job, while working at a hospital outside of Auckland, he met a 20-year-old female patient, described in a report by the New Zealand Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal as Ms Y.
The tribunal found that the pair began a sexual relationship in June of 2008, around the same time he ceased to act as her psychiatrist, and that she travelled to Tasmania with him in September 2008 when he signed his employment agreement with Mental Health Services Tasmania.
Ms Y then moved to Launceston to study nursing at the University of Tasmania in November 2008, telling her parents she had moved to be with Dr Maharajh.
The tribunal heard she initially lived with Dr Maharajh and his wife in their George Street apartment, where the affair continued without Mrs Maharajh's knowledge, and that on one occasion she and Dr Maharajh had stayed overnight in Hobart together.
The relationship ended in a car park confrontation in February 2009, when Mrs Maharajh either became aware of the affair or was told by her husband that Ms Y had invaded their privacy.
The tribunal also found that Mr Maharajh paid Ms Y up to $30,000 between February 2009 and February 2010.
The first payment was $900 to allow her to return to Auckland and, later, payments were made to encourage her to withdraw her complaint against him to the Health and Disability Commissioner.
Dr Maharajh denied any sexual relationship with Ms Y in the tribunal hearings and said he had paid her because she threatened to accuse him of an improper relationship.
In its decision finding him guilty of professional misconduct and stripping him of his practising licence this month, the tribunal found Dr Maharajh "abused his position of trust as her psychiatrist for his own sexual gratification".
It said Ms Y was "very vulnerable" and had, by Dr Maharajh's own evaluation, a history of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, low self- esteem and relationship problems.
Director of Proceedings Aaron Martin said Dr Maharajh was "unfit to practice as a psychiatrist and represents a danger to the public if he continues to do so".
Mr Martin said disqualification was necessary to "mark his conduct as abhorrent to the rest of his profession".
He was also fined $73,000.
Dr Maharajh, who no longer works in Tasmania, told the tribunal the Australian regulator was aware of the matter, and he recognised he would inevitably be prevented from practising in Australia as well.
