A health worker jailed for sexual assault after performing oral sex on a vulnerable patient has been banned for life from working in any health service capacity.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
When the patient asked him what he was doing in a bizarre exchange at a Caboolture health clinic, Christopher Paul Costello, 32, replied "I just need to try and get some fluid out to see where the blood is coming from".
He was jailed for three months after pleading guilty to sexual assault, which included placing his mouth over the man's penis several times.
On April 10, 2013, the 30-year-old patient was sexually abused during an appointment with Costello, who was employed as an Aboriginal health worker at the Murri Health Group clinic and was not a registered practitioner or doctor.
A tribunal described the incident as an "increasingly venturesome series of acts of sexual exploration of the patient's testicles and then penis, with obvious attempt at stimulation".
Costello took a urine sample and blood pressure tests before noting traces of blood in the urine and asking the man to stand in front of him, before putting his mouth over the man's penis.
When the patient asked "What's this about?" he replied, "I just need to try and get some fluid out to see where the blood is coming from."
Costello told the man to meet him in the nearby toilet block, where he asked the patient to remove his underwear and again put the man's penis in his mouth, prompting this exchange:
Patient: "What's this all about? I'm not gay."
Costello: "This is what I thought you wanted."
Patient: "No mate, I came here for a medical check, I'm not gay".
Costello: "No, no, you're not gay. We'll leave it at that, just don't say anything."
The patient took his complaints to his mother, Murri Health and the police and Costello was charged with two counts of sexual assault five days later.
In sentencing, Judge Brian Harrison labelled the actions a "blatant breach of trust".
"To some, it may seem strange that he never objected earlier, but in any event, what you did was totally unacceptable and went way beyond the guidelines of what you were required to do," he said, according to News Corp.
The Health Ombudsman placed an interim ban on Costello shortly after his release and he had not practised since.
Both the Ombudsman and Costello's lawyers agreed the ban was appropriate but the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal was required to rule on the ban.
In handing down a decision published on Thursday, QCAT judicial member James Thomas noted hindsight, remorse and Costello's several psychiatric conditions as mitigating factors.
But he found the man posed a "serious and unacceptable risk" to people and wouldn't be allowed to practise.
"Conduct of this kind by a health worker simply cannot be tolerated," he wrote.
"Vulnerable people need protection from such depredations.
"Whether his conduct is surveyed from the standpoint of poor character or absence of self-control, the risk of harm in further contact between him as a health service provider and members of the public is too great to contemplate his return to any practice of this kind."
Mr Thomas noted Costello appeared to have the option to appeal to QCAT to review the order in the future but "a heavy onus would lie on him to show the Tribunal that there was no longer any unacceptable risk to patients".
