Conlon has practised medicine in Murupara for 35 years and said the drawn-out process has taken a toll \u2013 not only on him, but on the wider community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is the community has been through a lot. They lost me, their doctor, just before Covid, when I was suspended for four months. And it was a pretty scary time for them. And now this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters \u2013 including patients \u2013 are expected to attend the Rotorua hearing. <\/p>\n
Conlon said he had sought to have the hearing moved to Rangitahi Marae in Murupara to make it easier for local people to attend, but that request was declined.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have preferred that they not be put to the expense of travelling into Rotorua,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He noted that witnesses giving evidence against him had been permitted to appear remotely at their request.<\/p>\n
Conlon said he welcomed public access to the tribunal, provided court rules were followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have allowed full access to the public on the very clear, explicit request that court rules are acknowledged and obeyed. I do not want anything to disrupt this process because, as I have said, it has been five years. I am weary of it and I want it over.\u201d<\/p>\n
There has been strong support for the doctor from the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 35 years, would it surprise anybody that there would be a groundswell of spontaneous opinion or a desire to support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conlon declined to comment on the specific nature of the complaints ahead of the hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would prefer the details come out during the tribunal. At that stage, people will have a full understanding as to the allegations and my strong rebuttal of those allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tribunal is expected to sit for two weeks before reaching a decision.<\/p>\n
– Whakat\u0101ne Beacon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conlon has practised medicine in Murupara for 35 years and said the drawn-out process has taken a toll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[169656,169657,24571,3273,69835,134,60502,111,43,139,69,1118,61,6847],"class_list":["post-311924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bernard","tag-conlon","tag-decide","tag-future","tag-gp","tag-health","tag-murupara","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-to","tag-tribunal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}