A former Adelaide GP banned from providing health services has denied breaching the prohibition, contradicting claims by clinic staff and Australia’s medical regulator.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation National Agency (AHPRA) believes Bill Tolis may be providing health services, including naturopathy, despite a seven-year ban imposed by the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in 2022.
AHPRA said Tolis posed a “serious risk” to the public, prompting the regulator to name a banned practitioner publicly for only the second time in its history.
The tribunal found Tolis had engaged in unprofessional conduct, including prescribing medications that caused harm such as liver and kidney damage, arranging unnecessary tests, failing to assess patients and keep records, and prescribing drugs facilitating anabolic steroid abuse.
Outside Findon Clinic on Friday, Tolis told The Advertiser he was not practising medicine or naturopathy and claimed he was only “managing” the clinic, saying medicine was “a matter of definition” and repeatedly asking, “what’s naturopathy?” before denying he practised it.
Earlier, a receptionist said he was consulting at the clinic until 5pm, while a sign and voicemail referred to him as “Dr Tolis” despite his deregistration.
In a 2023 Supreme Court ruling rejecting his appeal, Justice Kevin Nicholson said Tolis was “willing to place his patients at risk on the basis of unproven treatments,” adding that this was “characteristic of him.”
AHPRA has urged anyone treated by Tolis after August 2022 to contact its criminal offences unit. Providing health services in breach of a prohibition order is a criminal offence, punishable by up to $60,000 in fines, three years’ imprisonment, or both.
AHPRA chief executive Justin Untersteiner said, “We take our responsibility to protect the public very seriously and would not be doing this if we did not believe it was necessary based on the evidence before us.”
Source: The Advertiser.
