Maligned doctor to sue
HEALTH COUNCIL MUST PROVIDE NAME OF FALSE ACCUSER Council made her have psychiatric assessment, but nothing is wrong with her.
The Health Professions Council has been ordered to provide a Centurion medical doctor, who was subjected to a humiliating investigation after she was falsely accused of being “impaired”, with the identity and particulars of her accuser.
This week Judge Norman Davis gave the council 15 days to provide Dr Liana van Dyk, 50, with the complaint which led to an “informal” investigation and documents reflecting the identity of the person who reported she might be an “impaired practitioner”.
The judge also granted a punitive costs order against the council, which ignored Van Dyk’s repeated requests for access to the information and opposed her court application on spurious technical grounds.
Van Dyk, who has her own practice focusing on integrated medicine, has been practising since 1992 and had an untarnished record until the council informed her that “it had come to their attention” she might be an impaired practitioner, and a psychiatrist had been appointed to assess her. The psychiatrist, Dr Franco Colin, found nothing wrong with her.
He found her to be in a healthy and stable condition.
Van Dyk said she intended instituting a claim for defamation and damage to her good name against her false accuser and possibly the council. She suspected the complaint was made by a previous patient, who victimised her for a while and was involved in a court case against a previous colleague who allegedly owed her money.