Ex-AMP chair Catherine Brenner’s husband forced to end medical career over prescription drug addiction

THE husband of dumped AMP chairman Catherine Brenner was forced to end a glittering career as one of Sydney’s leading urologists over an addiction to prescription painkillers, it can be revealed.

THE husband of dumped AMP chairman Catherine Brenner was forced to end a glittering career as one of Sydney’s leading urologists over an addiction to prescription painkillers, it can be revealed.

As Ms Brenner clings to her remaining directorships of Coca Cola and Boral despite being forced to resign as chair of AMP yesterday, The Daily Telegraph can reveal her husband Phillip Colin Brenner was busted using opiates when he earned millions of dollars a year operating on the prostates of wealthy patients at St Vincent’s Private Hospital.

Sources close to Mr Brenner confirmed the substance abuse began after a bad skiing accident in Thredbo five years ago in which the respected surgeon fractured his arm and broke most of his left ribs.

Catherine and Phillip Brenner.

He suffered a collapsed lung and was flown off the ski slopes before spending a month in hospital, where he had reconstruction surgery on his arm.

About a year after being pinged for wrongly using his powers as a doctor to access and prescribe painkillers, further evidence of a continuing addiction to painkillers was uncovered.

Official records show Mr Brenner relinquished his authority to practice medicine and the NSW Secretary of Health Dr Mary Foley removed his rights to prescribe drugs of addiction in April 2015. The record of Dr Foley’s decision says Mr Brenner is banned “until further notice, as a medical practitioner from supplying, having possession of or issuing a prescription for a drug of addiction”.

MORE

BANKING ROYAL COMMISSION: AMP could face criminal charges

BANKING ROYAL COMMISSION: AMP chair Catherine Brenner resigns

BANKING ROYAL COMMISSION: CBA charged dead customers

BANKING ROYAL COMMISSION: NAB advisers falsified signatures

Phillip Brenner was badly injured in a skiing accident five years ago.

It is understood Mr Brenner’s departure from medicine did not result from a patient complaint and that the addiction was uncovered by those who worked with him at the private clinic he ran.

“We are enormously proud of the tough but right call Phil made to walk away from his life’s passion of being a leading urologist,” the family said in a statement last night. “We have nothing but love and admiration for him.”

A spokesman for St Vincent’s declined to comment.

Mr Brenner has since become a property investor through a number of company investment vehicles he co-owns with his wife.

A Cremorne apartment block the couple bought in 2012 is in the process of being sold for an undisclosed sum, believed to be more than $10 million.

The Cremorne apartment block. Source: realestate.com.au

The building has council approval to be knocked down and replaced with a new design consisting of a block of 20 units.