Medical radiation practitioner suspended for practising without insurance for five years

10 Dec 2024

A Victorian medical radiation practitioner has been reprimanded and had her registration suspended for three months after failing to hold professional indemnity insurance (PII) while practising between 2017 and 2022.

Huu Thanh Xuan Le realised she did not hold PII after being selected for a random audit of health practitioners in 2022 and informed the Medical Radiation Practice Board of Australia (the Board) after completing an audit checklist.

The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (National Law) requires practitioners to have appropriate PII arrangements in place to practise as a medical radiation practitioner. Ms Le’s failure to do so was a breach of the Board’s ‘Registration Standard: Professional Indemnity Insurance Arrangements.’

In addition to not holding PII, Ms Le made false declarations to the Board on five separate occasions when renewing her registration between 2017 and 2021. On each occasion, Ms Le falsely answered ‘yes’ when asked if she held PII for the previous registration period.

The Board referred Ms Le to the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal (the tribunal), which found Ms Le had engaged in two instances of professional misconduct, specifically practising without PII, and ‘recklessly’ making false declarations to the Board on five separate renewal applications.

The tribunal also found that Ms Le engaged in one instance of unprofessional conduct by failing to notify the Board within seven days that she no longer had appropriate PII arrangements in place, as required under section 130 of the National Law, and that she had improperly obtained her registration as a result of the false declarations.

‘The materials … showed that Le paid little to no attention to the questions and answered them without first confirming her PII arrangements,’ the tribunal stated.

‘Noting those declarations were made recklessly and without any proper consideration being given to the seriousness of the question or whether the answer was correct, we were satisfied that Le obtained her registration improperly on each occasion.

‘We were … mindful of the need to specifically deter Le from again breaching her legal and professional responsibilities and to ensure other medical radiation practitioners are … vigilant about holding PII and giving full and attentive disclosure when renewing.

‘In making our determinations we also had regard to uphold the standards of the profession and to support community confidence in the profession.’

Ms Le has since obtained retroactive cover and has kept up her PII since 2022.

On 4 October 2024 the tribunal ordered that Ms Le:

• be reprimanded
• have her registration suspended for three months, and
• have conditions imposed on her registration requiring her to, for the next five years, demonstrate to the Board that she has PII in place.

Read the full decision.