A FORMER Mornington Peninsula-based doctor who engaged in sexualised behaviour with two patients as well as writing false prescriptions has had his registration banned for five years.
The Medical Board of Australia (MBA) referred seven allegations about Dr Mahmoud El Said Ali to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.
The allegations occurred between 2010 and 2018 during the time Dr Ali was a general practitioner based at Mt Martha Village Clinic from 2007 to 2017 and at Elite Medical and Dental Clinic in Mornington (2017 to 2018). He also practised briefly in the middle of 2018 at The Station on Tanti Family and Women’s Clinic in Mornington.
In a decision handed down on 5 September, VCAT members Denise Van Vugt and Dr Laurie Warfe found Dr Ali had “engaged in conduct amounting to professional misconduct” in all seven allegations.
Dr Ali’s medical registration was cancelled and he has been disqualified from applying for registration again until 5 September 2030. He will also be prohibited from “providing any health service until such time as he once again obtains registration as a health practitioner”.
Dr Ali’s registration has been suspended since 22 November 2018 by the MBA after it obtained a warrant to search his home. Among the items seized were prescription drugs, including ten medications prescribed for persons other than Dr Ali or his family members, blank prescription forms in the name of another doctor and 11 electronic devices.
The tribunal heard between December 2017 and January 2018, Dr Ali breached “professional boundaries” after engaging in “sexualised behaviour and communications” with a 19-year-old female known as Patient 1 and “continued to consult with her after she became employed as a receptionist at Elite Medical”.
On one occasion, the VCAT judgement stated that in January 2018 Patient 1 was sitting in Dr Ali’s consultation room when he “approached her, leaned over her and started to touch and kiss her” before trying to have sexual intercourse with her. The VCAT decision said Dr Ali, who was aged 51 at the time, had started to “act more personally with her and that the two of them had exchanged text messages that were unrelated to her medical care and work at Elite”.
Patient 1 reported the matter to her manager saying she did not want to continue her relationship with Dr Ali and wanted the text messages from him to stop. She ultimately quit her job at the clinic in January 2018.
According to the VCAT decision, Patient 1 “was particularly vulnerable due to her personal circumstances and health conditions” and “Dr Ali clearly took advantage of the power imbalance between them, to establish a sexualised relationship while he was treating her, for his own gratification”.
Dr Ali was banned from seeing female patients from 9 July 2018 after the MBA imposed a gender restriction following allegations concerning Patient 1. The VCAT decisions stated, “Dr Ali acknowledged his behaviour was ‘entirely unacceptable’,” and that he “regretted his serious boundary transgressions and was sorry for the harm he had caused Patient 1”.
Following the search warrant in 2018, Dr Ali’s phone records were analysed resulting in the MBA starting an investigation into “apparent sexualised texts and physical conduct involving another patient” known as “Patient 2” which occurred between January and June 2018.
“Patient 2 was a vulnerable 23-year-old patient, who had a number of serious and complex conditions,” the VCAT decision stated. “Patient 2’s oral evidence elaborated on the tone and content of the communications between her and Dr Ali, both by telephone, and during consultations.
“The overall effect of Patient 2’s evidence was that she felt she had been exploited by Dr Ali, and that he had utilised the power inherent in his position, together with psychological manipulation, to cause her to agree to have sex with him on two occasions.”
Furthermore, the VCAT decision found between 15 May 2017 and 12 May 2018 that Dr Ali had forged prescriptions in the name of his former colleague. He had also improperly possessed ten medications prescribed for persons other than a member of his household and stored six prescription drugs and controlled drugs at his home.
First published in the Mornington News – 14 October 2025
