KEY POINTS:
A Wairarapa surgeon is breaking new legal ground by claiming alcohol hand wash he uses before surgery was the reason he failed a roadside breath alcohol test.
Orthopaedic surgeon Ian Denholm is fighting a drink-driving charge after he was found to be over the legal limit when pulled over by police in Masterton at 6pm on July 6 last year.
Police allege he failed a roadside breath test and then recorded a breath alcohol level of 593 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath when tested back at the police station. The legal limit is 400mcg.
Denholm's defence is that the alcohol-based sterilising rub that he frequently used over the hours he was in surgery that day was absorbed into his kidneys.
That absorption reached his breath, affecting the results of the evidential breath alcohol results.
Police say the grounds for his defence are unprecedented, and suggest that surgeons could be operating under the influence of alcohol. The case could have worldwide implications.
Denholm told police that he had been in the operating theatre most of the day, prior to being stopped by police, the Dominion Post reported.
He had then returned home and consumed a couple of wines between finishing work and getting back in his car.
The "moderate" amount he had drunk was not enough to have put him over the limit, he argued.
Denholm was excused from appearing when the case was called in Masterton District Court yesterday.
The matter is expected to head to a defended hearing.
Police prosecutor Greg Peters said that because the case was unprecedented, police had to ask for more time to prepare expert evidence.
"We are still awaiting the results from those experiments his legal team have done and evidence and documents pertaining to the tests, and then we will get expert witnesses in forensics and someone from the company that makes that sterilising lotion."
Mr Peters said the case had the potential for dire consequences one way or the other.
"The question will be asked, are these doctors operating under the influence of alcohol?
"That's basically what this defence team is saying the tests have proved."
Wairarapa District Health Board chief executive David Meates said that although the alcohol-based steriliser was used in hospital wards worldwide it was not commonly used in operating theatres.
"There is no evidence to suggest there is any problems with the alcohol-based handwash...we have no concerns with the product."
Denholm is continues to work while he awaits a court hearing.
- NZPA
