The GP who broke the rules to give people a better life – and got caught.
For decades Dr Tony Hanne gave hundreds of patients what they needed - drugs for ADHD.
His patients - who were spared the frustration of long waits for a psychiatrist appointment - were grateful. But by helping them skip the queue, Hanne broke the rules on the way.
Last week the GP of 40 years, who’s described as an internationally recognised expert in the area, was found guilty of professional misconduct. It’s a case that highlights the difficulties tens of thousands of New Zealanders face getting a diagnosis and treatment for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
RNZ Health Correspondent Rowan Quinn followed the case at the Medical Disciplinary Tribunal which heard that ADHD drugs such as Ritalin can only be prescribed with a recommendation from a psychiatrist or paediatrician.
Hanne prescribed the drugs without that recommendation 5662 times.
He told the tribunal he did it so that hundreds of people who would otherwise miss out could get the medication. He said the public health system could not cope with the numbers of people with ADHD seeking help.
“Tony Hanne would see a patient, say yes, they’ve got ADHD, they need to be on this medication, and they need to get sign-off from a psychiatrist," says Quinn.
"So he would send batches of these recommendations to a psychiatrist who he was working with. The psychiatrist would effectively rubber-stamp them and he (mostly) wouldn’t even talk to Tony Hanne about them.
“Then the patients were able to get their medication.”
This had been going on since the late 90s and he hadn’t been pulled up for it. But then the psychiatrist retired, he couldn’t get someone to replace him, and he started writing the prescriptions himself. A pharmacist picked up the fact that he was doing so when he shouldn’t be, and reported him to the Medical Council.
“There’s no accusation that he was over-dosing or even over-prescribing. And even the prosecution has recognised that he is an expert in this field,” says Quinn.
Ritalin and related drugs were categorised as a Class B controlled drug in the 1990s, when there were cases of it being sold as a stimulant. But evidence now shows that’s largely stopped as methamphetamine - a super-stimulant - has become so common.
ADHD New Zealand Chair, Darrin Bull, said he hopes the verdict will lead to a better understanding of ADHD. They don't support GPs operating outside regulations, but he says the decision is sad because Hanne has been supporting ADHD patients for years.
The Detail also talks to Sonia Gray, who discovered she had ADHD when she took her then six-year-old daughter to be assessed. Gray was part of a TVNZ documentary, Kids Wired Differently, which featured her daughter Inez and other children who are neurodivergent. That's a term that encompasses ADHD and is used to explain the neurological differences in the brain.
Seven years, many appointments with specialists and several thousands of dollars later, Inez has several diagnoses of disorders on the spectrum.
Gray says the medication and other treatments are not cures. "It is a lifelong thing," she says.
She has since become an advocate and started a Facebook support page for neurodiverse families after her own experiences and hearing about the difficulties of others.
She says people need a roadmap of where to go for a diagnosis and help.
Learn more:
Dyslexia Foundation New Zealand
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