A GP is taking legal action against the Medical Board of Australia after being cautioned for failing to make a mandatory report about the suspected sexual abuse of a child.
Dr Jason Blum, a GP on the Gold Coast, opted not to alert child protection services in 2017 after a patient said her ex-partner might be sexually abusing their three-year-old daughter.
He said that, after listening to the patient, he examined the child and ordered a vaginal swab, which returned normal results. There was no corroborating evidence to support her claim.
But the mother lodged a complaint against him, claiming Dr Blum “did not do everything in his power as a doctor to help protect my children”.
In January, he was cautioned by the medical board for taking inadequate steps to determine whether the mother was able to protect her child.
The board said that while Dr Blum did not lodge a mandatory report, he did write a letter outlining the mother’s concerns, which he gave to the woman as part of a custody battle she was fighting with the girl’s father.
He also suggested she block the father’s access visits.
The board said this response was “indicative of a reasonable belief that the patient was suffering or was at risk of suffering significant harm”.
But Dr Blum wants the ruling overturned, arguing it was both unfair and a professional embarrassment.
In a statement lodged with the Queensland Supreme Court, Dr Blum stressed that, under Queensland’s Child Protection Act, doctors were only compelled to make a report if the child did not have a parent who was willing and able to protect them.
And according to Dr Blum’s lawyers, there was no evidence that he was “unreasonable” in deciding that the mother was both able and willing to protect her child.
“The basis of the [board’s] finding that Dr Blum’s steps to establish the patient’s circumstances were inadequately managed is devoid of logic, nonsensical and a foray into pure speculation, unsupported by any objective facts,” they added.
The letter was not evidence that Dr Blum suspected abuse, they argued, but only a record of the mother’s concerns about the child.
The Supreme Court’s decision is pending.