Disgraced Hawke's Bay doctor loses his medical registration while behind bars

Disgraced former doctor David Lim knew he would lose his ability to ever practice in New Zealand again. Photo/File

A Hawke's Bay doctor who was jailed for drugging then indecently assaulting four young male patients has now been stripped of his medical registration.

David Kang Huat Lim was practising as a GP at The Doctors in Hastings when he was convicted of five charges of indecent assault and five of stupefying.

The 42-year-old doctor treated each of the victims for minor ailments throughout an 8 month period in 2014.

Each was sedated with Midazolam and testified to waking up to find their GP touching their private parts.

During sentencing, Judge Geoff Rea condemned Lim for using his medical knowledge to make the young victims vulnerable in order to carry out his sexual acts.

"There was a certain boldness about your offending and there was a premeditated nature to it in the sense that you had clearly planned to use this drug on these occasions to facilitate your offending."

His counsel argued the doctor's patients knew he was gay and that this, combined with Midazolam's side effect of hallucinations, led the victims to see, hear and feel things that didn't happen.

But the argument flopped when most of the witnesses said they weren't aware of his sexuality.

Lim was jailed for five years in August and his since been issued a deportation order back to Malaysia after serving his sentence.

However, Lim's case was also brought before the NZ Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal to assess the NZ Medical Council's application to cancel Lim's ability to remain a practising practitioner if he returned to New Zealand.

In its decision to cancel his doctor's registration, the tribunal said the charges themselves were serious and either separately or cumulatively adversely affected his fitness to practise.

"This case involves the patients of a medical practitioner who were old enough to look after, and sufficiently capable of looking after, themselves against any inappropriate behaviour from their doctor but who were each stupefied by him into a state where they could not do so."

Despite being behind bars, Lim still protested his innocence but accepted his doctor's registration was in jeopardy.

In submissions from his lawyer on his behalf, Lim knew the charges had ended his career and "has been devastating to him and a significant fall from grace".

He accepted that, given the convictions, an order for cancellation of registration and an order for censure were inevitable.

However, despite the fact he was being deported, the public still needed protecting from him "and any other practitioner who chooses to act in this way".

"This is a case strongly calling for protection of the public from activities of this nature by a medical practitioner and must be reflected in the penalty.

"It is not just a question of Dr Lim's position but also of the profession as a whole which must understand the need for protection of the public in this way."