Tara Moss pursues professional negligence case against Katoomba GP

Glamour-girl novelist Tara Moss is showcasing her growing collection of mobility aids on social media — with her walking stick getting its own name and Instagram page.

Five years may have passed — and she may no longer call Sydney home — but glamour-girl novelist Tara Moss is nothing if not determined to pursue a professional negligence case against a Katoomba doctor to its conclusion.

The matter was back in the Supreme Court last month, and sources for Moss last week disputed whispers the matter had finally been settled.

Tara Moss with one of her mobility aids. Picture: Instagram

The case, brought by Moss in 2019, relates to hip pain she claims to have suffered since early-2016 and which first presented after she was operated on by an unnamed surgeon.

Moss has told the court the condition was finally diagnosed in 2018 by another doctor, who found she had a labral tear in the cartilage around the hip socket.

But neither of those is the doctor Moss is suing. That man is Dr Chris Coghill, an Upper Mountains Medical Practice doctor who was for a time her GP.

Moss, 47, claims in her suit that Coghill failed to examine her pelvic area for signs of injury when she saw him for a post-op consultation in March 2016 and later in 2017.

The doctor, who denies any negligence, told the court in 2019 there was “no clinical indication” warranting such an examination — and suggested Moss’s own negligence had likely “contributed” to any pain she suffered.

The ever-stylish Moss’s new wheelchair. Picture: Instagram

Tara Moss with ‘Wolfie’ her walking stick. Picture: Berndt Sellheim

Neither Coghill nor Moss could not be reached for comment last week.

In the five years since she first started seeing doctors for the problem, Moss has juggled the writing of two new novels with a relocation back to her native Canada.

She has also been busy curating a few social media accounts which have faithfully documented her transition from athletic society blonde “It” girl and model to Betty Page-inspired 1940s pin-up girl — a move that, judging from her Instagram account, may owe something to her fascination with burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese, who was once regularly referenced on Moss’s account.

Moss’s look has evolved from athletic society blonde to 1940s pin-up girl. Picture: Instagram.

Another icon is Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who also appeared on Moss’s account in October 2016, when Moss caught an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.

“Frida’s works are so frank, confronting and unromantic, depicting life as a woman, as a person with disability and chronic physical pain … Uncompromising and fiercely feminine, she was a woman before her time,” Moss posted in October 2016, two months after she competed in her first City2Surf fun run.

But garnering almost as much attention as Moss’s own Insta account has been the account she set up in September 2019 for her walking stick, “Wolfie”.

Since the site was launched, Moss, who uses the stick sporadically, has made herself something of an Instagram champion for mobility aid users and the disabled.

The model and novelist has returned to her native Canada to live. Picture: Bob Barker

Of late, though, “Wolfie” has had to share the limelight with an array of new devices.

In March last year she acquired a new rollator, which she dubbed “Terminator”.

Then last August came her first wheelchair, the arrival of which so alarmed her concerned nine-year-old daughter Sapphira, Moss informed followers, the girl “burst into tears”.

That may have also had something to do with Moss receiving ketamine infusions that same month (also on Instagram) for pain relief during one of her hospital visits for an unnamed “procedure”.

In October Moss took delivery of a new rollator, “Ruby”, at her Canada home, but last month “Ruby” was superseded by a new custom wheelchair, “Hera”.

A delighted Moss said “Hera” was a year in the making: “It is so important to feel connected with your wheelchair, and proud of it,” she said, unveiling the painted skull-covered chair for the first time on social media.

It seems Sapphira, who now rides around in the chairs, has managed to make her peace with her mother’s growing collection of medical apparatus.