Occupational therapist guilty of professional misconduct over texts

An occupational therapist said she “lost everything” after a relationship with a patient that escalated to sex.

An occupational therapist from NSW told a “vulnerable” patient she would later have sex with that their text conversations were “our secret”, a tribunal has heard.

Amanda Williams was working as a contractor when she was assigned to perform an NDIS assessment on Patient A in September 2018, and they continued to chat and socialise with each other until March 2019.

During that time they exchanged more than 500 personal or sexual messages, the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) has heard, and twice engaged in sexual intercourse.

Ms Williams admitted to unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct, and the tribunal formally found her guilty this month.

Messages published by the HCCC show the personal relationship began with Ms Williams meeting up with Patient A, who had autism, for coffee and inviting her to the beach.

A mock up of texts sent between the pair.

The patient was worried about her texts being read.

The messages showed Ms Williams was worried about whether Patient A had told anyone about their conversations, ahead of a meeting with her boss in November 2018.

“Does anyone know we text so much that you know of?” she wrote.

Patient A responded: “I don’t have my phone around anyone to see them is that what you mean?”

“Yes. That is good,” Ms Williams wrote. “My boss wants to go over what I did with you so our texts are our secret.”

Patient A said she did not want anyone to read their messages: “I am panic I promise I keep secret I promise I am sorry I don’t understand”.

“Don’t worry. No one will read our texts,” Ms Williams reassured her.

“I have a super long code to get into my phone lol. They just want to check my assessment I wrote x.”

Patient A said she had sent things “I wouldn’t want anyone to see” because “they wouldn’t understand”. “I am sorry I am sorry,” she wrote.

“Don’t be sorry. I promised no-one will read it,” Ms Williams replied. “I wrote a lot of personal things to you that I don’t want anyone to read either. You are safe and so am I x”

The two continued to speak and hang out for months after the professional relationship ended, and later had sex twice in 2019.

On one occasion after Ms Williams bought Patient A a stuffed lamb toy, and another time a gold necklace.

Patient A’s support worker later lodged a complaint to the HCCC in May 2019.

Ms Williams told the HCCC she “lost everything” due to her relationship with the unnamed patient, which saw her charged – and later cleared – by police.

The messages were revealed during the HCCC hearing.

In her submissions, Ms Williams admitted she went on unrecorded outings with Patient A during their professional relationship but said she had no “intentional design” for anything more.

Ms Williams told the tribunal she was “unwell at that time” and was not thinking clearly.

“I know I made a terrible mistake … I did the wrong thing … I have lost everything, I hurt the patient,” she told the tribunal.

In its judgment, the tribunal found Ms Williams had clearly breached the code of conduct and appeared to have “limited insight into the gravity of her conduct”.

“Ms Williams was aware that Patient A was particularly vulnerable with autism spectrum disorder and anxiety,” it found.

“Ms Williams said that she felt she was the only one who could help Patient A because Patient A ‘made her feel like she needed me’.

“She never sought assistance from her manager or disclosed the relationship.”

Rather than seek help from superiors, the tribunal found, she actively ignored their directions to keep responding to Patient A’s messages.

“Noting that despite a clear directive by her manager to cease the relationship that Ms Williams did not do so, we regard Ms Williams’s conduct as being a most serious matter,” it said.

The HCCC formally found Ms Williams guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct.

If she had still been registered, the tribunal said it would have cancelled her registration and disqualified her from being registered as an occupational therapist for 12 months.

Ms Williams’ registration has been suspended since August 2019, which was pending the outcome of her criminal matters.

All charges against her were withdrawn by prosecutors in 2022.