SYDNEY Dec 9 AAP – A doctor has denied over-prescribing morphine to children at a NSW yoga ashram where he lived for a decade.
FORMER child residents at the Mangrove Yoga Ashram have given evidence that they were drugged, beaten and raped by the spiritual leader, Swami Akhandananda.
Practices at the NSW Central Coast retreat during the 70s and 80s are being examined by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Henry Sztulman, a GP who lived at the ashram for 10 years, denied allegations by witnesses that he prescribed morphine regularly for minor ailments like an infected toe. “Absolutely not,” Dr Sztulman said. Dr Sztulman denied administering morphine at the ashram except on two occasions when people were in excruciating pain – once to a swami who had been poisoned by a stone fish. Dr Sztulman said he slowly came to accept there had been abuse at the ashram although he never saw any “overt behaviour” indicating abuse of the children. He denied witnessing public beatings of adults and children. “I didn’t actually see it, but one of the guys … said something happened and Swami Akhandananda slapped his face,” he said. In 2002 The Medical Tribunal of NSW prohibited Dr Sztulman from prescribing addictive pain killers. Dr Sztulman said the drug the medical tribunal reprimand him over was codeine phosphate drugs and never “morphine by injection”. The tribunal report, based on complaints made in 1997, noted that “Dr Sztulman presents as a rather unworldly, naive practitioner”. It said “his insulation from general practice whilst at the ashram contributed to his limited understanding of the issues of manipulative drug addicted patients”. The report also said Dr Sztulman was counselled over inappropriate prescription of narcotic drugs in 1995. Dr Sztulman supported Akhandananda when he was tried in 1989 for sex offences against four girls. The hearing continues before Commissioner Jennifer Coate.