Australia’s health regulator is prosecuting a cosmetic surgeon, Cynthia Weinstein, for allegedly claiming to be a registered medical practitioner and for illegally possessing a poison.
Acting on behalf of the Medical Board of Australia, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) has also charged Weinstein’s Victorian company, CDC Clinics Pty Ltd, of falsely claiming that Weinstein was a medical doctor.
The charges, including 14 counts of claiming to be a registered medical practitioner, and one count of possessing a poison only allowed to be prescribed by doctors, will be heard in the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday.
Claiming to be a registered health practitioner when not registered, and claiming that another person is a registered health practitioner when they are not, are both offences under national law.
Weinstein has long attracted the ire of health authorities, with patient complaints of botched surgeries and fraud allegations dating back 15 years.
In 2010, Fairfax reported that Weinstein had allegedly left one patient looking like a “raw piece of meat’’, while others claimed to have been left with burns to their faces after receiving cosmetic procedures.
In 2004, Weinstein was fined $1,000 after being convicted of Medicare fraud.
The Medical Board of Australia cancelled Weinstein’s medical registration in April 2010, and she agreed never to apply for registration as a medical practitioner in Victoria or elsewhere in Australia, or in New Zealand, again.
But in October, news program A Current Affair tracked Weinstein down and found her working in a medical clinic where she was allegedly claiming to be a doctor. While it is not illegal for a deregistered doctor to work in such a clinic performing certain noninvasive procedures, Ahpra contends she was nevertheless holding herself out as a registered doctor.
The current registration status of all of Australia’s 637,000 registered health practitioners is published on Ahpra’s register of practitioners. If a person’s name is not the register, they are not registered to practise in Australia.
If convicted, Weinstein faces a fine of up to $30,000 for each allegation of claiming to be a doctor, while her company faces a fine of $60,000 for each charge of claiming Weinstein was a doctor.
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