Doctor under 'emergency' five year suspension finally goes to trial over social media posts

The Christian GP's anti-abortion posts referred to "industrial-scale massacre of babies by doctors," and called abortion doctors "serial contract killers"

Dr Jereth Kok. Image: Supplied.

Melbourne doctor Jereth Kok was suspended under emergency provisions by the medical regulators in 2019 after two anonymous complaints triggered an investigation into his social media posts.

Neither complainant was a patient, and Dr Kok, 43, has never had a complaint made against him by a patient in his 15 year medical career, including ten years as a general practitioner (GP, equivalent of American PCP).

The posts reflected Dr Kok’s conservative Christian views on abortion, gender medicine and sexuality, raising questions over whether Australian medical practitioners are free to publicly express their religious views.

Five years later, Dr Kok finally stood trial in a five day hearing at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), held last month, with another hearing expected to be held later this year before the matter can be settled.

However, even if Dr Kok’s suspension is lifted, the five year process has already effectively ended his career.

”I think that the hurdles would just be insurmountable” he told me, listing the requirements to renew memberships, update his training, find a practice who will take him now that he has a black mark against his name, and the inevitable reeducation and practice conditions required by the regulator. “It’s been a defacto deregistration, hasn’t it?”

The process is the punishment

A spokesperson from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) said that, “Suspension is an interim action that can be taken by a national health profession board (National Board) or a tribunal to protect the public.”

AHPRA is the umbrella bureaucracy over the National Boards (medical, physiotherapy, nursing, dental and so on), which together regulate all registered health practitioners in Australia.

AHPRA did not provide an estimate of average suspension time, but said that “the length of the suspension will vary dependent on the individual circumstances of the matter.”

However, the regulators have come under criticism in recent years for slow walking this “interim” process, resulting in some doctors being sidelined without income for years without any avenue to defend themselves against the accusations levelled at them.

Shockingly, a study into distress caused by AHPRA’s complaints process found that 16 health practitioners took their own lives while subject to investigation between January 2018 to December 2021, with another four self-harming or attempting suicide.

Subjects complained of the stress caused by the excessively prolonged process, and the unfairness of ‘double standards’, where the time allowed for them to provide information was short, contrasted with long gaps in correspondence from AHPRA.

“It's a joke,” said Dr Kok. “I just don't see why it had to take this long. If you're going to use the emergency power, you can't then go and take five years to finish the process off. You've made it so difficult to ever come back to it that most people won't.”

Dr Kok described the experience as a "road test" for his faith. “I've had to rely on God through three years of unemployment, through the grief of suddenly losing contact with all my patients, and through being slandered,” said the married father of two.

As the sole income earner in his family, Dr Kok had to retrain and is now working in the software industry.

Dr Kok also worried about the impact on his patients, explaining that the “abrupt” nature of his suspension meant there was no opportunity for him to do a proper hand over for vulnerable patients with complex medical problems.

He recalled an elderly patient who he regularly visited in a nursing home telling him of her fear that he would leave her. Dr Kok said he felt “dreadful” when her fear was realised without him being allowed to contact her to explain what had happened or to say goodbye.

Dr Kok first found out he’d fallen afoul of AHPRA when he received a letter from the regulator the week before Christmas in 2018. The letter informed Dr Kok that he had been under investigation for nine months after an anonymous complaint was lodged against him in 2017 for comments he made online about the same sex marriage plebiscite.

Another anonymous complaint was made in 2019, this one relating to an article Dr Kok wrote, titled ‘A medical perspective on transgender,’ for Christian news site Eternity News, and other comments he’d made online. Following the second complaint, the Medical Board took immediate action to suspend Dr Kok’s medical registration.

“They are not alleging that I've done any harm in the clinic,” said Dr Kok, clarifying that the complaints and subsequent investigation focused solely on his online posts.

AHPRA launched a far reaching search into Dr Kok’s social media posts and online comments, commissioning forensic IT investigators Ferrier Hodgson to compile a dossier, at an estimated cost of $4,800-$6,000. Ferrier Hodgson also suggested subpoenaing Facebook for complete access to all posts made by Dr Kok from 2014 onwards.

In February 2020, Dr Kok unsuccessfully appealed his emergency suspension. He offered to sign undertaking to remove the offending posts and not to make any further online posts about contentious topics while the investigation was underway.

However, the Medical Board argued that this would not suffice because the “fundamental issue” was Dr Kok’s “character,” “values” and “views,” and what Dr Kok might have “already said to members of the community who might attend on him in his general practice, or the medical profession more generally.”

The Board’s barrister argued that Dr Kok’s suspension was therefore necessary for “public confidence,” but assured that that the investigation would be “concluded very quickly.”

Twenty two months later, in December 2021, Dr Kok was finally told that his case was being referred to the tribunal (similar to a court but less formal). By this time, AHPRA had added posts Dr Kok had made about Covid vaccines and restrictions to add to its brief.

Now, three years on from his referral to the tribunal, and five years since his initial suspension, Dr Kok has finally had the opportunity to defend himself against the regulators’ accusations.

On trial for ‘inflammatory’ social media posts

During his VCAT hearing last month, Dr Kok was accused of professional misconduct related to 85 social media posts and online comments he wrote between 2010 and 2021, including memes, and a sarcastic comment which the regulator took seriously. Most of the posts were made on Dr Kok’s social media network under private ‘friends and friends of friends’ settings.

In one post, Dr Kok highlighted the fact that the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine was “derived from the desecration from a murdered human being,” referring to a cell line from an aborted foetus. Dr Kok believed this fact to be in the public interest, particularly for Christians, many of whom choose not to take medicines derived from aborted foetuses for religious reasons.

In a comment under an article on Christian website Culture Watch condemning the use of Australian aid money to fund family planning measures (including contraception and abortion) in Africa, Dr Kok sarcastically stated,

“Soon, our civilisations will be vanquished, and the Earth will be overrun by Black people. The solution is clear: we must take “family planning” to poor countries and exterminate them before it is too late!”

The regulator condemned the statement as a call for racial violence and genocide, an allegation that Dr Kok said was covered by medical news sites, resulting in him being “defamed.” However, Dr Kok told the tribunal, “I was simply echoing the point [the article] made,” that being that the aid is a form of genocide.

Several memes by U.S. conservative satirical site the Babylon Bee digging at gender ideology and Covid restrictions were also brought up in the hearing.

Medical journalist Heather Saxena, who attended several days of the VCAT hearing, reported the contents of some of Dr Kok’s other posts which were discussed in the hearing for AusDoc (here and here):

“…Dr Kok had described doctors who performed abortions as “butchers” and then added: “What’s wrong with capital punishment for serial contract killers?”

“Dr Kok also referenced the “industrial-scale massacre of babies by doctors,” called Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital the state’s “premier baby killing facility,” and claimed that doctors who performed gender reassignment surgery were “crooks engaged in mutilation.””

In another post, Dr Kok used the term “child abuse” in reference to same-sex couples with children.

Saxena reports that the Medical Board’s argument was not that any individual post constituted professional misconduct, but that in toto, Dr Kok’s language denigrated doctors and could discourage patients from discussing certain procedures with doctors. The board’s lawyer also argued that Dr Kok’s posts encouraged violence to racial groups and expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric.

During the hearing, Dr Kok conceded some of his language was “inflammatory” and “inappropriate,” such as calling abortion doctors “serial killers,” calling gender reassignment surgery “medical butchery,” and using the term “child abuse” in connection with same-sex families.

In his witness statement, Dr Kok said that some things he wrote “did amount to a denigration of other medical practitioners,” and that he would refrain from using such perjoratives in the future.

However, Dr Kok defended his religious convictions, maintaining his stance that marriage is for heterosexual couples only, that gender reassignment surgery is harmful and unethical, and that he does not condone abortion. Dr Kok also defended his long standing opposition to vaccine mandates, stating “I believe in patient autonomy ... to choose or decline treatment.”

Dr Kok’s barrister, Stephen Moloney, argued that “There is no law in this country that says [Dr Kok] is not allowed to say that abortion is morally wrong,” and that speaking on medical topics was a right “given unambiguously to the practitioner under the code of conduct.”

Dr Kok also rejected the Board’s assertion that his public stance on gender, abortion and sexuality would deter patients from seeking care.

“It might undermine their willingness to see me, but I’m not sure it would undermine their willingness to see other doctors,” he said, adding that if a patient asked him about abortion, he would refer them to a GP in his practice who provided abortion care.

Additionally, in his witness statement, Dr Kok said that “I have provided care to many LGBT patients. I have never told them what they should think or discussed my religious beliefs with them.”

Is there room for free speech in medicine?

In making Dr Kok’s case, Mr Moloney argued this case was “probably one of the most important cases that’s ever been put in this tribunal in the last 30 years.”

“It goes to the democratic right of any doctor in this state to speak about matters of conscience,” he said.

“This is not a case about whether Dr Kok has practised medicine safely or effectively. This case is about whether what Dr Kok said in the public square can be sanctioned by the regulator.” 

Dr Kok acknowledged that there will be people who disagree and are offended by his opinions, but he doesn’t see that as a reason to ban doctors, or anyone for that matter, from publicly expressing their views.

“If some other doctor says Christians are scum, they should be all rounded up and put in jail and their kids taken off them, well, they can,” he said. “That's their right to say that. I mean, I don't think they should lose their job just for saying it, even though they're insulting my tribe.”

AHPRA has taken a different view. The limits of free speech in medicine were tested during the pandemic, when AHPRA issued a position statement, in March 2021, threatening medical practitioners with regulatory action if they were to make any public statements might undermine the government’s vaccine rollout.

AHPRA made good on its promise, swiftly suspending doctors who issued Covid vaccine exemptions, or who prescribed off-label treatments for Covid to patients. (It should be noted that AHPRA has taken no issue with the off-label use of Covid vaccines, which are solely approved “to prevent coronavirus disease,” but have instead been promoted and administered for the touted benefits of lessening the impacts of the disease.)

AHPRA’s hawkish stance led high-profile doctors, including former head of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), Professor Kerryn Phelps, to accuse the regulator of having censored public discussion on vaccine injuries and other Covid related issues.

In 2022, 18 leading Covid scientists and doctors, including masking advocate Professor Raina McIntyre and Professor Phelps, wrote an open letter to all the health ministers around the country calling for AHPRA to be reined in, after the regulator required rural GP Dr David Berger to undergo reeducation for undermining public health messaging in his social media posts.

While Dr Berger’s position was staunchly pro-vaccine, he tweeted about airborne transmission when public health authorities said that the virus was spread via droplets, called for better personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health workers, and criticised the government’s investment in the AstraZeneca vaccine when he believed the mRNAs to have a better safety profile.

The letter in Dr Berger’s defence stated,

“We are concerned about the potential for AHPRA to lose its focus on patient safety and become a means to persecute doctors and other registrants for political reasons, in the name of maintaining confidence in public health measures. In fact, it may have the opposite effect if the community distrust a regime that silences medical dissent this way.”

“Australia must not be a country where reputable scientists and clinicians cannot speak for the public good because they fear reprisal from their government regulator.”

In another campaign to stop medical censorship during the pandemic, the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS) drew up a Health Reform Declaration calling for “the restoration of informed consent” to the profession.

While AHPRA’s Covid vaccine position statement has since been been superseded with a less threatening information page, medical practitioners are not breathing a sigh of relief yet.

Amendments to the National Law are rolling out in states and territories throughout Australia, threatening to further silence doctors on matters that could affect confidence in public health initiatives.

Both AMPS and the AMA have opposed some of the changes, which the AMA argues “will have major impacts on the lives and work of medical practitioners without improving standards of care for patients,” although some legal experts welcome the removal of the legal requirement for AHPRA to refer all matters to tribunals, which are costly and prolong proceedings.

Stamping out diversity

Australia is facing a shortfall of GPs, as demand for services outstrips supply of doctors. With a squeeze on services, and with our nation’s ethnically and culturally diverse population, there is an argument for keeping doctors with dissenting views in practice, provided that they do not pose a risk of harm to patients.

At the last Census (2022), 20% of Australians identified as Catholic, 10% as Anglican, 3% as Muslim and 3% as Hindu (rounded). Members of these faith communities may appreciate being able to access care from a doctor whose convictions about certain procedures mirror their own.

Dr Kok emphasised that he did not believe his own convictions would prevent anyone from accessing care.

“I think the reality is that, with abortion for example, probably 80% or 90% of the medical and nursing professions are fine with doing it. If 10% of [medical professionals] have a strong objection… You've still got plenty of people who are able to do it for you,” he said, applying the same logic to getting a referral to a gender clinic.

On the issue of gender medicine, though, Kurt Mahlburg of the Daily Declaration highlighted in a recent article that Dr Kok’s views actually appear to be quite in line with the “shifting consensus” since the AHPRA investigation first started in 2018.

“The WPATH Files scandal, followed by the UK’s recent Cass Review, has prompted calls across the Western world to halt the genital mutilation of children and the use of puberty blockers that are also used in the castration of sex offenders.

“Denmark, Norway, France, Sweden, Finland, Italy, England, Chile and dozens of US states are among the jurisdictions where warnings have been sounded or legislation enacted to restrict the transing of children.

“Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is likewise under growing pressure from medical groups to investigate the practice.”

Mahlburg also noted that Covid lockdowns, which Dr Kok criticised on social media, “have also been in the spotlight in Australia with the release of three comprehensive reports documenting their harms.”

The fact that medical knowledge is not static is perhaps the greatest argument for protecting diversity in the medical profession.

Next steps

Dr Kok said that a ruling will be made about the extent and scope of his misconduct after a second hearing later this year. Then, a further hearing will consider submissions regarding Dr Kok’s punishment, with the process not likely to come to completion until “some time next year.”

Asked what he’s drawn from the experience, Dr Kok replied, “That there is no free speech in this country, we are under 24/7 surveillance, and career destruction is on the table if you attack sacred cows like transgender ideology!”

Dr Kok is represented by the Human Rights Law Alliance, which provides assistance, advice and advocacy to ordinary Australians facing challenges for living out their faith and convictions in public.

The HRLA said on its website that the outcome of Dr Kok’s case “will have important legal implications and a win would be a landmark for freedom of speech in this country.”

Readers who wish to financially contribute to Dr Kok’s legal defence can do so via GiveSendGo.

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