DRUG-LINK DOCTOR ALLOWED TO KEEP PRACTISING

A Melbourne doctor accused of selling drug prescriptions to addicts and
defrauding Medicare has won a Supreme Court reprieve that allows him to
continue practising.

Jack Freeman, 52, of Lansell Road, Toorak, was granted a stay by Master
Wheeler last Monday against the Medical Board's suspension of his
practising rights.

The board made the rare suspension on August 3 in the interests of public
safety.

The decision to allow Dr Freeman to continue practising has deeply
concerned the board.

Early this week, the board will apply to Master Wheeler as a matter of
urgency to have his decision overturned.

If the board's move fails, it will have to wait until a hearing about Dr
Freeman's registration before the Supreme Court practice court on August 28.

Dr Freeman, who practises in a North Melbourne clinic, sought and obtained
an ex-parte hearing in the Supreme Court against the Medical Board's order.

Under ex-parte rules, the other party does not have to be notified or
represented.

Dr Freeman only formally notified the board of the stay late on Friday
afternoon.

In July, Dr Freeman appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court facing 35
charges.

They included making false statements about Medicare benefits, prescribing
restricted drugs without conducting an examination and trafficking a drug
of dependence.

Dr Freeman, who was remanded in July to reappear in the Magistrates Court
on September 8, allegedly got through 600 visits a week. The Magistrates
Court heard that drug addicts loitered outside his surgery.

On August 3, the Medical Board took the unusual step of suspending Dr
Freeman forthwith under section 27 of the Medical Practice Act, citing a
"serious risk that the health of the public will be endangered".

Dr Freeman did not respond to a Sunday Age request for an interview.

Last August, Dr Freeman told an inquest on 25 heroin-related deaths that
doctors had limited information about how many of their colleagues addicts
were seeing at once.

He told coroner Graeme Johnstone he knew people who had been seeing up to
54 doctors and he suspected more than 20 per cent of his patients lied
about their medical pasts.

In 1994, Dr Freeman was charged with hundreds of counts of Medicare fraud
and incitement to commit arson.

But his defence counsel told Melbourne Magistrates Court in July that most
of the charges from that time had been withdrawn.