Patient B,who cannot be named for legal reasons,left the doctor $24 million of his $27 million fortune – including the title to his $3 million Strathfield home – in two wills amended three months before his death in 2017. The new wills were drawn up by Alexakis’ family solicitor.
The Salvation Army was the original beneficiary of Patient B’s inheritance,alongside a former business associate and an acquaintance. The trio who contested Patient B’s will in the NSW Supreme Court in May this year,claimed the GP had abused his power and committed fraud,but ultimately the group was unsuccessful.
The HCCC alleged Alexakis visited the ailing patient 92 times,or almost daily,in the months leading up to the execution of the will,and that he had established a “friendship” with the patient to exploit him for financial gain. Patient B was 83 when he died.
While the tribunal found the visits were “disproportionate to any professional or clinical purposes” and involved “blurring of the boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship”,there was insufficient evidence to find Patient B had been manipulated into changing his will. Patient B was effectively a recluse,with no family or spouse,the tribunal found.
“In the circumstances revealed by the evidence,the tribunal is entitled to be suspicious about[Alexakis’] intentions.[Alexakis] was obtuse or naive in not imagining that Patient B might have provided for him in his will,” the tribunal wrote.
But,it said,“we are unable to find that it was … in whole or part,undertaken with the intention of financially benefiting by being named in Patient B’s will. It may have been,but that is a matter for conjecture.”
The tribunal found that Alexakis also failed to observe professional boundaries and interfered with treating doctors while Patient B was admitted to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in May and June 2017 and when the patient entered palliative care at Concord Hospital in October of the same year. It was these doctors who made the complaint to the HCCC.