The RDH doctor charged with serious sexual offences has been stood down

The NT Department of Health has broken its silence around charges laid against a senior doctor. Read what they said.

Royal Darwin Hospital. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A senior Royal Darwin Hospital clinician charged with serious sexual offences is not presently treating patients in the Northern Territory health system.

Answering questions Health Minister Steve Edgington wouldn’t, or couldn’t, NT Health chief executive Chris Hosking said the charged doctor was not currently working within Territory Health.

He declined to say whether the doctor was still being paid.

“The senior doctor who has been arrested and charged is not on duty or on site within the health service,” Mr Hosking said.

The comments ended days of silence by NT Health leadership, which had refused through its media unit to respond to questions about the charges, despite deep public concern at events surrounding Royal Darwin Hospital during the past 10 days.

On Wednesday, the NT News revealed a 45-year-old senior NT Health clinician had been charged with two counts of possess child abuse material under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

He was bailed to appear in court on April 1.

NT Department of Health chief executive Chris Hosking

The charges being made public was followed by the shocking workplace suicide on Monday of a colleague of the accused physician, which stunned and devastated the Territory’s tight-knit health and hospital communities.

Police confirmed they were investigating links between the charged physician and the colleague.

Mr Hosking said the Department was unaware of any possible links between the two senior doctors.

“I don’t know that there’s any substance to that,” he said.

“I have no information at my disposal to suggest that’s the case and acknowledging one of those matters is in the hands of the police, we wouldn’t get visibility of that type of information.”

Mr Hosking said the Department’s priority was supporting grieving staff members.

“Our immediate focus within the hospital community is to support our staff who are grieving the doctor whose life was tragically lost earlier this week,” Mr Hosking said.

“He was very highly regarded and respected by his peers, and we have held staff debriefs and support sessions, which have been very well attended, and made sure we’ve got professional counselling services available to staff and peers.

Health Minister Steve Edgington on Friday.

“We have people, including some of our senior doctors, who are really struggling to make sense of this.

“It’s always difficult when a life is lost like this, and we’re left with questions and not many answers, but our primary focus at the moment is the wellbeing of our staff and then service continuity, to make sure that our services to patients are not impacted, or are impacted as little as possible.”

Mr Hosking declined to comment on whether the Department was investigating the events leading up to and including the last 10 days, but said there was no indication of it being a “systemic problem” within the hospital.

“I have no reason to suspect a systemic problem,” he said.

“There are no indicators or red flags or anything that would suggest I should be forming a view along those lines but, if I had, and I had initiated such an internal investigation, I wouldn’t be able to comment on it anyway.

“This has been devastating for the Department.

“I attended the staff debrief on Tuesday for the clinician whose life was lost, and there must have been close to 200 people in the auditorium, and the emotion at the heartfelt tragedy was quite palpable.”

Earlier, Mr Edgington said there was no indication additional charges could be laid.

“I have nothing before me to suggest that there’s any other further charges pending,” he said.

Under NT law, the NT News is unable to identify the doctor charged with the offence, and for that reason has chosen not to identify his specialty area to avoid impugning innocent colleagues.

Section three of the 1983 Sexual Offences (Evidence and Procedure Act), prohibits identification of anyone charged with a sexual offence before they are committed for trial or sentence.

Among a number of definitions, ‘the making, collection, exhibition or display of an indecent object of indecent material’ is considered a sexual offence.

Originally published as The RDH doctor charged with serious sexual offences has been stood down