Last week soared with a series of wins against witch hunts.
First was Daniel Penny’s acquittal in the United States, this continued with the complete, and total vindication of Moira Deeming, and ended with Dr William Bay’s well-earned exoneration.
Dr Bay won reinstatement as a doctor after a judge damned the state branch of the national governing medical body AHPRA as “biased, combative, and politically motivated.”
In his 27-page ruling, Queensland Judge Bradley J. voided APHRA’s 2022 suspension of Dr Bay, stating that its reasons for suspending the GP had no direct relationship to his clinical practice.
All five complaints targeted “Dr Bay’s conduct at political meetings, in online political broadcasts, or at political protests or demonstrations,” Judge Bradley concluded.
Not one of the complaints proved APHRA’s “allegations that Dr Bay had or was providing any clinical services that failed to meet the applicable professional standards.”
Judge Bradley then chastised APHRA for effectively weaponizing the “Code of Conduct.”
He said APHRA’s allegation that Dr Bay had ‘contravened relevant legislation was “baseless.”
COVID measures did not “authorise the board to ‘abrogate the right of persons,” abdicate due diligence, or deny Dr Bay due process.
These powers, he asserted, did not “extend the Board’s regulatory role to include protection of government and regulatory agencies from political criticism.”
Damning the medical governing body’s behaviour, the judge acknowledged an “apparent bias, and failure to afford fair process.”
To this, he added, “The evidence eventually produced by the Board revealed other unsatisfactory features of their conduct in dealing with Dr Bay.”
Alongside APHRA’s failure to review his suspension, its ‘combative’ conduct towards Dr Bay continued long after the end of COVID measures, into the courtroom.
Although having a spotless record since becoming a GP in 2016, APHRA’s complaints painted Dr Bay as a “significant risk to the public.”
Prior to his suspension, APHRA alleged that Dr Bay’s criticisms of “Australia’s health care systems and regulators,” endangered Australians.
Those who denounced Dr Bay are listed as “notifiers.”
There were five in total.
One notifier said they were ‘making a complaint “about a health service on behalf of someone else.”
They saw Dr Bay’s social media, described it as “bizarre commentary” and reported it as “of an anti-vax nature.”
Consequently, labelled an “anti-vaxxer,” by adherents of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” false narrative, Dr Bay was also accused of spreading misinformation.
At least one of his accusers – who had diagnosed his criticisms as having the “potential to cause serious harm” – wasn’t even a registered health practitioner.
Notifier number 4, was APHRA’s own Qld state manager, Heather Edwards.
Edwards took issue with Dr Bay’s politics and political activity.
One particular annoyance was Bay leading the Queensland Peoples Protest group rallies, in what Edwards deemed to be hostile to “AHPRA, and COVID-19 vaccinations.”
Here, Judge Bradley ruled that AHPRA’s ‘characterisation of the matter as an “Offence” was never justified.’
Edwards also considered Dr Bay’s “anti-COVID-19 vaccination stance,” “ill-informed,” and described it as “harmful messaging.”
If Edwards’ pursuit initialised suspension, notifier number 5 was the final nail to hit the coffin.
Associate Professor Julian Rait (Victorian AMA) took a similar exception to Dr Bay’s opposition to COVID mandates.
Rait claimed, in effect, that Dr Bay’s (now proven prophetic) “natural immunity” opposition to the “no jab, no job,” – “follow the science” – COVID consensus, was insulting to the point of putting the “public at risk.”
Noting how blatantly political the push to silence Dr Bay was, Judge Bradly wrote, APHRA and the board must have known “from the outset that all the notifications concerned political conduct by Dr Bay.
“There was no satisfactory explanation for defending the suspension decision after Dr Bay filed the application for review.”
It “indicates an animus towards Dr Bay.”
This is, the judge remarked, “in tune with the apparent bias that contaminated the original decision.”
He ruled the suspension of Dr William Bay null and void, telling the Board and AHPRA to pay all legal costs.
