Complainant details GP’s home visits

A doctor under investigation for allegedly having sexual relationships with patients fathered a child with the solo mother of a toddler he treated.

Lower Hutt woman Kim Dewhurst complained to the Medical Council about Wellington doctor Deane Drew in 1993.

‘‘Do you know what it’s been like, no-one believing me?’’ she said. ‘‘He got away with what he did because the people who should have believed me, didn’t.’’

She is the mother of his child, who is now 28 years old.

Drew did not respond to requests for comment.

Dewhurst’s revelations come as the Medical Council has received a further complaint about Drew, bringing the number of recent complainants to six.

In May, Stuff revealed Drew was facing a professional misconduct investigation over allegations he began sexual relationships with four vulnerable women patients, dating back to 1991. Two more complainants have since come forward.

Dewhurst wants the Medical Council to reconsider her historic complaint, which was not upheld at the time.

In its June 1994 decision, the council said the sexual relationship ‘‘though improper, is insufficient to justify disciplinary action.’’

Wellington GP Dr Cathy Stephenson, who is the deputy chair of Medical Sexual Assault Clinicians Aotearoa, said a sexual relationship with a patient’s family member – particularly when they were closely involved in their care – was ethically questionable.

‘‘There’s still an imbalance of power – you’re not entering the relationship on an equal footing.’’

This is echoed in the Medical Council’s ethics statement, which says a doctor’s influence over a family member can be similar to that of a patient, causing them undue harm.

On Thursday, a council spokesman said the 1993 investigation was undertaken by the preliminary proceedings committee, its investigatory body at the time.

He would not say if Dewhurst’s complaint would be reconsidered, and declined to comment further, citing privacy.

Dewhurst said she first met Drew as a young, solo mother living in the Wellington suburb of Berhamphore. She had been struggling with postnatal depression. She called the after-hours clinic about her toddler and Drew arrived on a home visit. That was usual for the time.

But Dewhurst says Drew stayed for four hours, and then returned unannounced the next evening to ‘‘check on her’’.

She says she next saw him when she attended her regular doctors, and Drew was there as a locum. From there, a relationship grew.

‘‘I was still very naive, very young and very gullible. He would turn up at my house at all hours of the night, like two in the morning, he’d drive past and see what I was doing.

‘‘I had a young baby, the dad left, and that’s when he made his move. He was just very supportive, very caring ... he kept popping around and popping around until I gave in.’’

Dewhurst says Drew quickly became controlling and manipulative. Still, she was very much in love. They planned to have a child together.

Dewhurst says she had no idea that Drew was married and had his own children until she bumped into him with his family at the pool one day. By this time, she was heavily pregnant with his baby. ‘‘What could I do? I was only weeks off having his child.’’

Drew began to back off. The last time she saw him was again at an after-hours clinic. After that appointment, she laid a formal complaint to the Medical Council.

‘‘I went to the Medical Council, I told them what had happened and that it wasn’t just me. I said to them: ‘‘He’s going to do this again, you’re not stopping him, and when it comes out, I will hold you personally responsible for his behaviour.’ I said to them: ‘Keep my file, I will be back’.

‘‘As far as they were concerned, they weren’t interested in pursuing him because he was a good doctor and I was a flighty, little girl.’’

Drew told the Medical Council he had entered a consensual relationship with Dewhurst, and when it ended she became ‘‘vindictive and destructive’’, with a desire to make him suffer.

Separately, he took her to court to dispute paternity. A test showed he was a 99.99 per cent match. He eventually conceded that he was the child’s father.

‘‘I was still very naive, very young and very gullible.’’ Kim Dewhurst