The would-be RACP president only found out that her board suspension would be extended a few hours before members did.
Dr Sharmila Chandran tells The Medical Republic that she is just as confused as the next person as to why the Australasian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission has elected to extend her suspension from the RACP board, just days before she is set to start as president.
The RACP board saga was drawn out over multiple Extraordinary General Meetings both this year and last.
Dr Chandran was initially suspended from her position as a responsible person of the college – aka a board member – in May, when she contacted RACP staff despite a SafeWork NSW prohibition notice ordering all college board members bar the CEO to refrain from communicating with staff.
Speaking to TMR this week, the renal physician maintained that she had breached the SafeWork NSW notice with the good faith understanding that she was performing her duties as a director.
“All that I did was send emails to the executive, [and] that was within my duties to do,” she said.
“It was always within my director duties to do that.”
Since her suspension, which was due to run out on 20 September, Dr Chandran said she had not contacted any members of RACP staff.
During the period of Dr Chandran’s suspension, the college was tasked with taking steps to ensure that its responsible people could comply with the directions of health and safety regulators and that they discharged their duties with the degree of care and diligence that a reasonable individual would exercise.
The official ACNC suspension notice specified that if, at the end of the suspension period, the regulator could not be “reasonably satisfied” that these issues had been addressed, it could choose to extend Dr Chandran’s suspension or take steps to remove her as a responsible person entirely.
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Dr Chandran said she had known that it was a possibility that her suspension would be extended, but that it still came as a surprise.
“I wrote a 50-page submission and gave it to them,” she said.
“It looks as if they have not considered any of what I raised in that submission.
“And then last week, the day that … I find out [about the extension], the college immediately sends a communiqué to members on Friday night. This is when I find out.
“… I got an email in on Friday afternoon, and then almost like a couple of hours later, the college has readied a communiqué.”
The events of the past two years had led Dr Chandran, a woman of colour, to believe that there was discrimination at play.
“It all seems very unfair,” she said.
“It feels like targeting, to be honest, because I’ve raised so many issues for so long within the college about the issues within the college, and, yeah, it comes across as targeting.
“It comes across as racial discrimination, and when you look at the full story there’s other people in the college raising concern about racial discrimination as well … I’m just being silenced, basically.”
Dr Chandran’s suspension would run out on 4 December, unless the ACNC took further action.
TMR reached out to the RACP for comment earlier this week but did not hear back.
