Physio's registration cancelled by Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal

A woman who was massaged by a shirtless physio says she regretted not coming forward earlier after hearing about his conduct towards another female client.

"I've always been confused by news reports of women who stay silent when in inappropriate situations."

"Then I was one of those women."

The woman's comments were about Coromandel-based physiotherapist Lance Easton, who asked the woman to take all her clothes off from the waist up for a neck and shoulder massage.

She wasn't provided with a towel so she could cover herself, and halfway through the session, Easton mentioned he was hot and took his singlet off, before continuing the massage.

"I felt extremely exposed," the woman told the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal earlier this month, where Easton was facing charges of professional misconduct.

"He was so relaxed about it, I felt I was the one in the wrong for being uncomfortable."

Now, the tribunal has opted to cancel Easton's registration as a physiotherapist, after he was censured and fined in the same jurisdiction for a similiar incident last year.

'It didn't feel right'

According to the charges against Easton, in 2013 his client had hurt her neck and scheduled an appointment at his single-room clinic in the Coromandel.

She was asked to remove her top and bra and was naked from the waist up, but was never told why that was necessary, nor what the treatment plan would be.

At some point during the treatment, after Easton had mentioned how hot it was in the room multiple times and then took his singlet off, he sat the woman on the bed, naked from the waist up, and began manipulating her shoulder and neck.

"It didn't feel right," the woman said.

"In hindsight, I now know I was being violated."

Five years later, the woman was back in the Coromandel area and hurt her shoulder and neck again. She told the tribunal she didn't want to be treated by Easton again and found a physio service online that did home visits.

But it was Easton who showed up again, and despite her uneasiness about being treated by him again, she was sore, and it was too late to schedule a different therapist.

Easton didn't bring a massage table, and the therapy session took place in a bedroom of the bach where the woman was staying with her family. She refused to lie on the bed and asked for the massage to be done upright, with her sitting on a dining room chair.

The woman also refused to remove all of the clothes from her top half, and instead took off her shirt and provided her own towel.

"I got the impression that he was mad at me," she said.

"He was massaging me very hard and felt like he was trying to dislodge the towel."

Following the massage, he had the woman do a breathing exercise and sat on a chair knee-to-knee with her for five minutes.

"It felt quite kooky at the time," she said.

"The breathing exercise didn't last longer than five minutes, but that felt like a very long time to just stare into each other's eyes and breathe."

The woman was too embarrassed to tell her husband about what happened at either session, and only came forward after nearly 12 years because of another case involving Easton before the same tribunal.

In that case, Easton massaged a patient on a public lawn in bare feet and without a shirt, told her about the first time he experienced cannabis and dropped the word "c***" into the conversation during the treatment session.

'He failed to maintain her dignity and bodily integrity'

Counsel for the Professional Conduct Committee appointed by the Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand, Catherine Deans, said Easton's conduct was primarily a breach of informed consent.

"Informed consent is a process, a sharing of information and ensuring the patient understands that. It takes time for that process to occur," she said.

"There was a complete absence of that checklist of informed consent criteria in this case."

Deans said Easton didn't talk through his treatment plan, asked his client to remove her clothes without explaining why and left her feeling vulnerable and exposed.

"He failed to maintain her dignity and bodily integrity," she said.

Deans said Easton had not practised physiotherapy since 2019 and had no intention of returning to the practice, and as such, was seeking for his registration to be cancelled entirely.

In her submissions, Deans said further conditions on his registration, as well as a fine or a suspension, were essentially meaningless because he was no longer working as a physio.

In a decision released today, the tribunal confirmed that Easton's registration had been cancelled.

* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.