THE director of controversial Sydney clinic Psych n Soul, which offered experimental naltrexone treatments and rapid detoxification for heroin and methadone addicts, has had his psychology licence cancelled after damning findings by the NSW Psychologists Tribunal.
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Ross Colquhoun, who was neither a medical doctor nor (the tribunal found) a formally qualified clinical psychologist, has been ordered to cease working in the field.
He is banned from offering mental health services, including counselling or related community health and welfare services.
An unrepentant Mr Colquhoun told Fairfax Media he would appeal the deregistration in the Supreme Court, and claimed the tribunal had failed to establish he was unfit to practise.
"The evidence didn't support the decision," he argued, brushing aside the panel's unanimous findings that he engaged in conduct which reflected badly on his ethics and integrity.
Mr Colquhoun's clinic was strongly criticised by state coroner, Mary Jerram, in September, after she investigated the deaths of three former patients who underwent naltrexone treatments at the clinic.
One, 24-year-old Grace Yates, was the mother of a five-month-old baby girl.
Now the Psychology Tribunal has documented extensive failings in Colquhoun's treatment of two male patients identified only as A and B, one of whom died later in intensive care.
The tribunal said Mr Colquhoun had given scant recognition to "the fact that some of his conduct placed his patients at serious risk ... he did not appear to be seriously contrite or regretful".
It said patients A and B were unsuitable candidates for the risky treatment, which should only have been carried out in facilities with "the capacity to retain people as in-patients in the event of severe withdrawal".
Instead, patient A was released on the day of his treatment into the care of elderly parents who struggled to get him into their car as "his body was out of control". They were told the clinic had no facilities or staff to care for him overnight.
Patient B, 48, was kept overnight at the clinic after rapid opioid detoxification using naltrexone, but was dropped next day by Mr Colquhoun at a Sydney boarding house.
He was found unconscious after two days and taken to intensive care where he died three weeks later.
Both were unsuitable for the controversial and experimental treatment because of their history of depression, anxiety, low levels of social stability and other drug use, the panel said.
"The tribunal has no confidence that even with a period of supervision the respondent [Colquhoun] would develop sufficient insight, make such serious changes to his work habits as a psychologist, embrace honesty, integrity and ethical approaches, and be reliable to put his patients' safety and other interests before his own commercial interests," it said. Mr Colquhoun charged thousands of dollars for the treatments that are not performed elsewhere in NSW.
Oral naltrexone is approved for the treatment of alcohol dependency but implants for opiate addiction are still considered experimental.
Lawyers for the family of Grace Yates said yesterday they were relieved to see that "'Mr' Colquhoun" had been ruled not fit to practise.
