In news beknown to almost every parent of a child out there, kids aren’t exactly fond of taking medicine.
And you’d think that doctors administering said medicine would also be aware of this very fact. Shockingly, this apparently isn’t always the case.
As reported by KidSpot, Dr David John Levick, a GP working out of consulting room in the North Queensland town of Bowen in December 2013, was struggling to get a young boy, diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to swallow a capsule, when things took an unacceptable turn.
A tribunal has heard that for 50 minutes, the boy fidgeted and refused to swallow the capsule, even throwing the pill across the room. In a bid to control the boy, AAP state that Dr Levick, 68, placed his feet on top of the boy’s, despite the child only wearing thongs.
Despite the boy’s mother being present in the room, the tribunal were told that Dr Levick told the boy, “I’m going to wallop you,” with the boy then asking, “What does that mean?”
The doctor told the child it meant he was going to smack him, before squeezing the boy’s cheeks with his hands.
The boy then threw the capsule across the room, with Dr Levick slapping his right cheek, leaving the child with a bruise.
In October 2014, Dr Levick pleaded guilty to one count of occasioning bodily harm and was fined $2500, but no conviction was ever recorded.
The reason this case is surfacing now is because this decision, not to record a conviction against Dr Levick, allowed him to answer “no” when asked a question about his criminal history in a conversation with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
This lead the Health Ombudsman to step in, referring the case to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, who ultimately have just suspended his registration for two months, starting this May.
“In one sense it might be said that he was over-conscientious, but the overwhelming inference is that he became involved in a power struggle and finally lost self-control,” the judgement, delivered last week, read.
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