‘You will die you b**ch’: Qld doctor who had sex with patients, threatened one found guilty of professional misconduct

The actions of a Queensland doctor who had sex with three patients and threatened to kill one were described as “disturbing” in a decision handed down by QCAT.

Dr Praveen Kumar arrives at the Townsville watchhouse. Picture: Zak Simmonds

A Townsville doctor who had sex with three patients and threatened to kill one is set to face disciplinary action after he was found guilty of professional misconduct and to be not “fit and proper” to be registered as a doctor.

According to a Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision handed down on Monday by retired Family Court judge Peter Murphy SC, Praveen Kumar was found to be “an unreliable witness” and to have violated multiple boundaries with patients, with the similarities in his misconduct toward women described as “disturbing”.

Dr Kumar was found to have had sexual relationships with three female patients - one had cognitive impairments and another had mental health frailties - and assaulted and threatened to “kill” one of them.

He worked at My Family Doctors in Townsville until he was suspended in August 2016.

On September 2, 2020 in the Magistrates Court at Townsville Dr Kumar pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm of Ms D and one count of wilful damage to her car in an incident on March 5, 2017, the decision states.

He pushed her into a pool table, causing her to hit her head on the corner of the pool table, and smashed the windscreen of her car using a pool cue, the tribunal heard.

“You will die you b**ch. You will die,” he told Ms D between December 2016 and January 2017 according to phone calls recorded by Ms D.

“You are a piece of sh*t that does not deserve to live,” Dr Kumar told her.

“This time when I beat you up it will be worse than last time. I will smash your car as well.”

He was also found to have exploited another “very vulnerable patient”, referred to as Ms B, using his position as a doctor to have a sexual relationship with her including sex at his clinic.

Ms B told QCAT that Dr Kumar first had sex with her in his consultation room on September 8, 2008 and she “did not consent” to sex.

Dr Praveen Kumar Picture: Evan Morgan

She went to him for a consultation about a genital infection.

He stood trial accused of raping a patient in the District Court in Townsville in February.

But the trial on seven counts of rape was aborted and ultimately a nolle prosequi was entered on February 24, the decision states.

Aside from the assault conviction in 2020, Dr Kumar has not been convicted of any criminal offences and the disciplinary case was “not a de facto criminal trial”, the QCAT decision by Judicial Membe Murphy SC states.

In the 81-page decision Judicial Member Murphy said that after hearing evidence about the rape claims against Ms D, he concluded he was “not persuaded” on the balance of probabilities that Ms D’s seven allegations of rape were proven.

The rape allegations included a claim that Dr Kumar raped Ms D with an eggplant, and again with a bitter melon, both on June 11, 2016.

“That is not a finding that the rapes did not occur. Rather, the finding recognises the extremely serious nature of such allegations and the possible consequences of findings of rape and finds that the evidence as a whole is not sufficiently persuasive to reach such a finding in each case,” Mr Murphy concluded.

QCAT also concluded that Dr Kumar’s sexual relationships with patients “involves the exploitation of women by reason of their mental health, their intellectual impairment and age”.

Dr Kumar was also found to have forged signatures and authored false letters and statutory declarations to mislead investigators and tried to impede or subvert the investigations into his misconduct.

The state’s health ombudsman referred 64 separate allegations of misconduct to the tribunal, of these 35 were proven and 29 were not proven.

Dr Kumar was also found to have offered the father of a 17 year old who he kissed up and down her arm and touched her thigh, $10,000 for him to not report him to the Medical Board of Australia.

The kissing and touching was uninvited and unwanted, the tribunal noted.

The case returns to the tribunal for a hearing on what sanction Dr Kumar should receive on May 22.

Originally published as ‘You will die you b**ch’: Qld doctor who had sex with patients, threatened one found guilty of professional misconduct