Lifesaving medication held hostage in records standoff

A Leongatha mother has described the gut-wrenching anxiety of not knowing when her four-year-old son with cystic fibrosis would be able to access lifesaving medication again as the owner of the defunct Leongatha Healthcare continues to withhold patient records.

Ana, whose name has been changed at her request, said her son took lifesaving medications which required a documented paper trail before any GP could prescribe them.

"These medications are life support to him and are the reason why children with cystic fibrosis are no longer dying in their 30s," she told the Sentinel-Times.

"His body can't absorb or digest anything without them so he can get extremely malnourished and sick very quickly."

Ana said the clinic's sudden closure came as a complete shock and she initially "didn't believe it".

"It wasn't until the Sentinel-Times put a post up that I found out Leongatha Healthcare had shut down," she said.

"I actually commented saying that couldn't be true because I was only there the other day."

Ana tried to book a new doctor when the clinic closed without warning on January 16 but was told owner Dr Chris Webster would not release her son's records.

Without the records her new GP could not prescribe his medication and Ana was forced to lodge a Freedom of Information request with a Melbourne hospital in a month-long process to obtain her son's medical history.

In the meantime she had to travel to Melbourne three times with all five of her children to see a specialist who could write the scripts.

"It's an absolute nightmare waiting to see a specialist for a script I could have gotten in five minutes with a GP that had access to his records," she said.

Ana said she managed to stay ahead of her son's scripts but the stress of not knowing whether it would be resolved in time weighed on the entire family.

"It was breaking my heart, I was frightened we weren't going to get the new script in time," she said.

"It was a massive runaround for something that should have been as simple as transferring records."

It took a month from the clinic's closure for Ana to even get an initial appointment with a new GP in Korumburra.

To this day Dr Webster has not released her son's records or her own.

Ana said she had just given birth when the clinic closed and had postnatal complications which went untreated due to the sudden closure of the clinic.

"It wasn't just my son, now I have complications from birth that weren't seen to because I couldn't get an appointment anywhere," she said.

Her newborn baby also had to wait until he was 10 weeks old before receiving his first vaccinations - a month past the recommended six-week schedule.

Ana said she worked as a nurse and there was nothing stopping Dr Webster from releasing the records.

"There is no bureaucratic red tape preventing him from releasing them," she said.

"He is choosing not to. It's gut-wrenching.

"It's a matter of sending an email with a signed consent form. I'm just so infuriated and disappointed."

Dr Webster was sanctioned by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency over comments he made about convicted triple murderer Erin Patterson after her trial and cited the resulting financial pressures as the reason for closing the clinic that had served the Leongatha community for more than 50 years.

Ana said it felt like Dr Webster was holding onto patient records as a way of maintaining control.

"It feels like a power thing," she said.

"He rose to fame speaking out about Erin Patterson and it's almost like he enjoyed the notoriety."

She asked not to be fully identified due to Dr Webster still having access to all her personal information.

Federal Monash MP Mary Aldred told parliament last week that patients were still waiting for records 75 days after the closure and has written to the federal minister for Health and Ageing for a second time demanding urgent intervention.

"It's been 75 days since the Leongatha Healthcare clinic closed and patients are still waiting for access to critical medical records," Ms Aldred said.

"It reflects a broader failure in the Victorian health system. Pressure across regional services and a lack of leadership by the state government has led to multiple examples of unresponsiveness and lack of accountability."

The Health Complaints Commissioner told the Sentinel-Times it had regulatory powers to issue Compliance Notices and warned that failure to comply was an offence that may result in penalties.

Hundreds of formal requests for records have been lodged but few have been complied with.

Rail Trail Medical opened in the Leongatha hospital precinct in early March and has been assisting patients with transfer requests but confirmed the records remain under the control of the former practice.