Health Minister “disappointed” by osteopath’s complaint victory

Friday 15 February 2019

Jersey's Health Minister has said he is disappointed that a complaint from a local osteopath claiming he’d been mistreated by the Health Department has been upheld.

Deputy Richard Renouf made the comments following the publication of a damning report by the States Complaints Board (SCB), suggesting Health officials had poorly handled a complaint made against Mr Badrul Huda by a former patient.

It was suggested that the osteopath had failed to act responsibly in the case of a patient with an eating disorder, but the allegations were thrown out by the General Osteopathic Council (GOC), who said there was no case to answer.

Mr Huda later brought a case to the SCB, arguing that his reputation was damaged by the way the department handled the process.

Pictured: The osteopath brought a formal complaint against the Department which was upheld by the independent Board.

He was equally aggrieved that he was not informed of the complaint or given the opportunity to defend himself before a referral was made to the GOC, and even feared that, having seen strongly-worded emails from Jersey’s Medical Officer for Health describing him as "unscrupulous", the act was maliciously or even racially motivated.

The SCB ultimately ruled in his favour, and, although they found no "malicious or racist intent", they did conclude that Health officials had treated Mr Huda in an “unjust, oppressive or improperly discriminatory” fashion.

Now the Health Minister has hit back at the findings, stating that he was "disappointed" with them and maintaining that his department acted properly in response to a “legitimate concern” about Mr Huda’s practice.

Pictured: Badrul Huda took issue with how Jersey's Medical Officer for Health, Dr Susan Turnbull, had referred to him within email correspondence.

The response continues: “The Minister does not agree that the Department failed to deal effectively with the complaint made against Mr Huda. The Department took entirely the correct procedure to effectively assure the safety and well-being of a vulnerable adult.”

Deputy Renouf explained that the referral to the GOC triggered a “safeguarding investigation”, which is a process “for the protection of the person identified as at risk". "It is not an investigation against the person alleged to have caused harm. It is not (nor does it purport to be) a disciplinary or regulatory investigation," he clarified.

He said that the SCB may have misunderstood this process when considering the case, which resulted in a number of recommendations being given to the Health Department.

Pictured: The Health Minister said that his Department "are keen to learn" from the Board's recommendations, but maintains that Health did not err in making the referral to the GOC in the first place.

The Minister added that the department will be working with "an external and independent professional... to review the safeguarding procedures by the end of 2019", stating: "The Department are keen to learn and apply the lessons that can be drawn from the Board’s report and, accordingly, following review of the relevant policies, we will be making adjustments where appropriate."

The Health Minister makes no mention of the comments made about Mr Huda in email correspondence.

Summing up his response, the Minister accepted that “Mr Huda had not been notified before the referral to the GOC was made, and the Department has apologised for that step” before thanking the SCB for “the opportunity to respond” to their report on Mr Huda’s complaint.