Pubdate: Sun, 13 Aug 2000
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2000 David Syme & Co Ltd
Contact:  250 Spencer Street, Melbourne, 3000, Australia
Website: http://www.theage.com.au/
Author: Steve Dow

DRUG-LINK DOCTOR ALLOWED TO KEEP PRACTISING

A Melbourne doctor accused of selling drug prescriptions to addicts and 
defrauding Medicare has won a Supreme Court reprieve that allows him to 
continue practising.

Jack Freeman, 52, of Lansell Road, Toorak, was granted a stay by Master 
Wheeler last Monday against the Medical Board's suspension of his 
practising rights.

The board made the rare suspension on August 3 in the interests of public 
safety.

The decision to allow Dr Freeman to continue practising has deeply 
concerned the board.

Early this week, the board will apply to Master Wheeler as a matter of 
urgency to have his decision overturned.

If the board's move fails, it will have to wait until a hearing about Dr 
Freeman's registration before the Supreme Court practice court on August 28.

Dr Freeman, who practises in a North Melbourne clinic, sought and obtained 
an ex-parte hearing in the Supreme Court against the Medical Board's order.

Under ex-parte rules, the other party does not have to be notified or 
represented.

Dr Freeman only formally notified the board of the stay late on Friday 
afternoon.

In July, Dr Freeman appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court facing 35 
charges.

They included making false statements about Medicare benefits, prescribing 
restricted drugs without conducting an examination and trafficking a drug 
of dependence.

Dr Freeman, who was remanded in July to reappear in the Magistrates Court 
on September 8, allegedly got through 600 visits a week. The Magistrates 
Court heard that drug addicts loitered outside his surgery.

On August 3, the Medical Board took the unusual step of suspending Dr 
Freeman forthwith under section 27 of the Medical Practice Act, citing a 
"serious risk that the health of the public will be endangered".

Dr Freeman did not respond to a Sunday Age request for an interview.

Last August, Dr Freeman told an inquest on 25 heroin-related deaths that 
doctors had limited information about how many of their colleagues addicts 
were seeing at once.

He told coroner Graeme Johnstone he knew people who had been seeing up to 
54 doctors and he suspected more than 20 per cent of his patients lied 
about their medical pasts.

In 1994, Dr Freeman was charged with hundreds of counts of Medicare fraud 
and incitement to commit arson.

But his defence counsel told Melbourne Magistrates Court in July that most 
of the charges from that time had been withdrawn.
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