MELBOURNE-BASED pharmacist, Alexander Ho, will be unable to renew his registration with the Pharmacy Board of Australia for at least 12 months, after being found to have engaged in professional misconduct.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard that Ho has been found guilty without conviction of stalking a man he met through an online dating app in Apr 2019, and he was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order and fined $1,500.
The Tribunal was told that Ho and his victim had communicated using the app for a short period in 2013, but never met in-person, after which the other man asked him to stop contacting him.
However, Ho persisted in messaging the man from 2013 to 2017, despite multiple attempts to block him and requests to cease contact.
In 2017, when the victim continued to block or ignore Ho, his conduct escalated and broadened to include communicating with others in the health system seeking to discredit the victim, and with the victim's family.
Tribunal papers noted that between late 2017 and early 2018, Ho began discrediting his victim, who is a registered medical professional, in employment, social and family ciricles.
The Tribunal heard that Ho "contacted a number of heads of department at the hospital where the victim worked and made allegations about the victim, including allegations of paedophilia, medical practitioner misconduct and inappropriate online sexual behaviour", which led to the man being subjected to a number of workplace investigations.
Ho had initially contested the Pharmacy Board of Australia's call for his registration to be cancelled and that he should be disqualified for 12 months, as it would jeopardise his continued employment at Monash Health.
However, at a Tribunal hearing on 28 Oct, Ho's legal counsel said he no longer opposed the cancellation, as he no longer worked as a pharmacist.
The Tribunal was told Ho "had chosen for 'spiritual reasons' not to be vaccinated and so could no longer work in healthcare", and he did not intend to renew his registration.
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