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An emergency department doctor who worked at Joondalup Health Campus has been suspended for three years and fined $175,000 after the Medical Board found that he had sexually touched an 18-year-old woman.
Dr Kim Mullaley was found by the State Administrative Tribunal to have engaged in professional misconduct by touching the woman’s vulva in July 2016 during a physical examination of her “when there was no clinical reason for doing so”.
The Board heard that the woman was admitted to Hollywood Private Hospital for an eating disorder which she had been suffering from for several years and been hospitalised for on multiple occasions.
On July 12 2016 the woman was transferred from Hollywood to Joondalup Health Campus by ambulance with a police escort. She was at risk of self harm, court documents state, and was transferred to Joondalup as it offered more security.
She was declared an involuntary patient under the Mental Health Act and an assessment was undertaken in the emergency department where her history was recorded but she declined a physical examination.
Despite this, the tribunal heard that Dr Mullaley performed a physical examination of the woman and did so without a chaperone, to ascertain whether she was medically fit and suitable for
admission to the hospital’s mental health unit.
During or after that physical examination, Dr Mullaley provided the woman with what he described as ‘counselling’.
The woman returned to the same emergency department eight months later and was once again examined by Dr Mullaley. She took two photographs while in the cubicle and sent them to her mother claiming she was being examined by the same doctor who had previously engaged in the sexual touching.
The tribunal heard her mother then entered the cubicle and verbally abused the doctor, calling him a “paedophile” and “disgusting” and accusing him of not being suitable to hold a job at a hospital.
A different doctor then took responsibility for the woman.
The Medical Board referred the matter to the tribunal. He was found to have “behaved in a way that constitutes professional misconduct” after a hearing where the woman had to give five hours of evidence.
“It was very obvious that the giving of her evidence was very difficult for the complainant,” tribunal documents state.
“At times she appeared to be nervous, worried and sad. More often, indeed frequently, she was upset and crying. On several occasions, she became very distressed. At other times she was angry and frustrated, particularly when it was suggested that her evidence was incorrect or inconsistent with other evidence, including her own.
“At the conclusion of her evidence, she was inconsolably distressed and sobbing and repeatedly said that she was not lying.”
Last month his registration was officially suspended until September 2028 and was ordered to pay the Medical Board $175,000 towards its costs.
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