A trusted friend is helping me establish and manage this fundraiser with my full knowledge and consent.
This campaign presents my account of the regulatory and legal proceedings brought against me. The Tribunal has made adverse findings, which I intend to challenge in the Supreme Court. No court outcome can be guaranteed.
Who Am I?
My name is Dr My Le Trinh. I am an Australian general practitioner who devoted almost 30 years of my life to caring for patients before I was suspended from medical practice.
My mother died during the brutality of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. As a child, I later fled communist Vietnam in a small fishing boat, risking my life in search of safety and freedom.
Australia gave me the opportunity to rebuild my life. I studied medicine at the University of Sydney and spent almost three decades caring for Australian families.
For approximately 12 years, I also travelled to rural Cambodia on self-funded medical missions, providing care to disadvantaged communities.
I believed deeply in Australia as a country governed by fairness, compassion and the rule of law. I never imagined that I would one day need public support to defend my name, my profession and my right to a fair hearing.
What Happened?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I prescribed ivermectin as part of my treatment of COVID-19 patients.
No patient made a complaint against me.
Instead, two complaints were lodged on 27 September 2021, only hours apart. One came from a doctor in the Westmead Hospital Toxicology Department and was made without the patient’s consent. The other was submitted under the name “John Smith,” but that person could not later be identified or contacted.
The HCCC ultimately raised six complaints against me. No patient harm was established. In relation to the Westmead patient, the HCCC’s own expert accepted during the Tribunal hearing that the corticosteroid treatment I provided had saved her life.
Despite this, I was suspended from medical practice in October 2021 and prosecuted by the Medical Council of NSW and the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission.
After almost 30 years of medical practice, the Tribunal has now made adverse findings against me. I believe important aspects of my case were misunderstood, unfairly characterised or not properly considered.
I intend to challenge those findings in the Supreme Court.
Why Does This Matter?
This case is not simply about whether people agree or disagree with ivermectin.
It raises broader questions about whether doctors were able to exercise independent clinical judgment during an unprecedented public-health emergency.
Doctors must be accountable for the care they provide. However, accountability must also involve reliable evidence, proportionality, transparency and procedural fairness.
My case raises questions about whether doctors could consider emerging treatments, question official positions and make independent clinical decisions without fearing that professional disagreement would end their careers.
It also raises questions about the fairness of the complaints process, the assessment of the evidence and the exercise of regulatory power.
I am asking for the opportunity to place my case before the Supreme Court properly and to have the legality and fairness of what occurred independently examined.
The Personal and Financial Impact
For almost five years, these proceedings have taken an enormous toll on me.
I have lost the ability to practise the profession to which I devoted my adult life. I have suffered severe financial hardship and a recurrence of post-traumatic stress connected with the trauma I experienced during childhood.
I have also had to pay my own legal costs because my medical indemnity insurer refused to fund a legal practitioner of my choice. This has left me carrying the cost of defending myself against government-funded regulatory bodies with far greater financial and legal resources than I possess as an individual.
Supreme Court proceedings are complex and expensive. They require careful preparation of legal arguments, evidence, affidavits, transcripts, court books and written submissions.
Without financial support, I may not have the resources needed to pursue this challenge properly.
How Will Donations Be Used?
The primary purpose of this fundraiser is to assist with the legal and related costs of my Supreme Court proceedings, including:
- solicitor and barrister fees;
- court filing and hearing fees;
- transcripts and preparation of evidence;
- affidavits, court books and written submissions;
- expert or medical reports where required; and
- other necessary expenses associated with presenting my case.
Some of the funds may also be used to help meet my essential living expenses while I remain unable to practise medicine and without my former professional income.
A trusted friend is helping me establish and manage this fundraiser. The funds raised are for my benefit and will be used for the purposes described above.
I cannot guarantee the outcome of the proceedings. I am asking for the financial ability to present my case properly and support myself while pursuing it.
How You Can Help?
Any contribution, however modest, will help me continue this legal challenge.
If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing this fundraiser with others who care about access to justice, medical freedom, independent clinical judgment and procedural fairness.
You can also support me by following the campaign and praying for strength, justice and a fair hearing.
After everything I survived to reach Australia, I cannot quietly surrender the principles of freedom and justice that Australia represented to me.
I am fighting to defend my name, my professional integrity and my right to have these matters independently examined by the Supreme Court.
Thank you to everyone who donates, shares my story or stands beside me.
Dr My Le Trinh
