Dodgy healthcare frauds deceiving patients

From a “dentist” with no qualifications, to a liar selling a fake cancer cure, these are the Victorian fraudsters prosecuted by the health regulator.

The health regulator has prosecuted more criminal cases in Victoria than any other state.

A fake dentist who treated Melburnians despite having no qualifications and a fraudulent doctor who worked under a stolen identity for a decade are among the 100 people prosecuted by the health regulator.

There have been 100 criminal cases against deceptive healthcare workers since 2014, more than half of which involved fake practitioners: unqualified people who pretended to be registered health professionals.

Twenty Australians previously investigated by the regulator were hauled before the courts for continuing to work with suspended or cancelled registrations; while a small number were stung for misleading advertisements.

Some of the outrageous lies spun by fraudsters included claims that chiropractic therapy could treat, cure and prevent cancer.

The Herald Sun can exclusively reveal the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency has prosecuted more criminal cases in Victoria than any other state, charging 35 people since their 2014 establishment.

The figures included 12 people working as a nurse and or midwife, 11 doctors and 6 psychologists.

AHPRA hit the 100 prosecution milestone on Wednesday, when Alexander Gigney — who worked unsupervised as a pharmacist while unregistered — was fined $1200 and sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order in Adelaide’s Magistrate Court.

AHPRA chief executive Martin Fletcher said the milestone was a significant moment.

“Pretending to be registered when you’re not or making dangerous unfounded claims about your services puts the public at risk,” he said.

“We take these matters seriously.”

Some of Victoria’s top fines include:

• Former cosmetic surgeon Mohamad Faizel Bin Anwar, who kept working for several weeks after the regulator suspended his medical registration amid patient safety fears.

Mohamad Faizel Bin Anwar.

Shyam Acharya.

He was handed a $100,000 fine — a Victorian record — in 2018.

• Fake dentist Edward Lipohar, who was fined $65,000 in 2018 after he was caught treating Melbourne patients despite having no qualifications and little dentistry knowledge.

Major Australian prosecutions include:

Vic man Edward Lipohar, involved in SGIC fraud case

• The 2017 case against the Australian Male Hormone Clinic, whose $127,500 fine for misleading claims about their testosterone deficiency treatment has remained a national record.

• Tasmanian physiotherapist Michael Dempsey, who received a $120,00 fine in 2019 after organising unqualified migrants, such as taxi drivers, to work as physiotherapists under fake names in aged care.

• Shyam Acharya, who impersonated a UK doctor to practise in Australia for more than a decade before fleeing, was fined $30,000 in absentia in 2017.

Eleven of the 100 prosecutions related to cosmetic services, an industry that AHPRA admitted was in need of tighter regulation last year after a damning report. They accepted the report’s 16 recommendations.

Changes to national law in 2019 — passed after some of AHPRA’s most notorious cases — also mean defendants who are found guilty of pretending to be a registered health practitioner now face up to three years imprisonment.

Australian Centre for Health Law Research Prof Tina Cockburn said AHPRA’s work on these 100 cases “holds offenders to account and deters noncompliance”.