A good friend of mine, and a Christian brother, someone
who’s Christian wisdom and tenacity I have seen in many different ways over the
last few years is facing the fight of his life.
Dr Jereth Kok is a doctor in Melbourne who is facing
deregistration and the loss of his ability to ever practice medicine again
because of his vocal opposition to abortion, transgender surgery and other evils. He has boldly spoken out against evil in our society and is paying the
price for it at the moment. The Give
Send Go website shares a bit of his story,
“Please support Jereth in a
disciplinary case in a Victorian Tribunal where he could be stripped of his
licence to practice medicine because of social media posts. Jereth has been
suspended for almost 5 years awaiting trial. In July, Jereth will finally face
a 5-day hearing to defend his (and all Australian medical professionals’)
freedom of speech and religious liberty.
Victorian General
Practitioner, Jereth Kok, a well-respected and competent medical professional
with 15 years’ experience, was suspended by the Victorian Medical Board in 2019
after being targeted by an anonymous complainant. Jereth had never received a
single complaint from any of his thousands of patients he had treated during
his career. Yet, the Medical Board pursued selective complaints about Jereth’s
social media posts discussing his personal beliefs on religious and political
matters like abortion, marriage, Covid lockdowns and transgender ideology.
In August 2019, the Medical
Board used its emergency powers to suspend Jereth in the “public interest”
while the Medical Board completed its investigation. For almost 5 years, Jereth
has been unable to practice medicine and support his family while he has
awaited his day in Court.
After five years, Dr Kok
will finally have his case heard at a five-day hearing in July. We must ensure
that Jereth’s medical license is not cancelled. Jereth is being represented by
the Human Rights Law Alliance, and an exceptional barrister team of Jim Peters
AM KC assisted by Owen Wolahan, with expert evidence being provided by top
experts on theology, clinical practice in gender medicine and Covid
science.
Your support is urgently
needed to help Jereth and his team with the expenses of a 5-day trial.
Andrew Thorburn, Israel
Folau, Margaret Court, J.K. Rowling and many other wonderful people have all
been targeted and lost their jobs for expressing their beliefs on contentious
social issues.
For Jereth personally, the
last five years have been a trying ordeal. Notwithstanding the fact that as the
sole provider for his young family, he was forced to retrain into a new career
in order to support them, but he was devastated to be barred from work that he
performed diligently and isolated from his patients and colleagues.
“The greatest difficulty at
first was the sudden dislocation and uncertainty. Suddenly I had no job, no
income, and was cut off from my patients and workplace. I experienced
tremendous grief on many occasions, thinking about my many patients who I’d
gotten to know so well over many years.”
Jereth has engaged the help
of the Human Rights Law Alliance, a not-for-profit law firm specialising in
religious freedom cases. HRLA will be working for Jereth on a heavily
discounted basis. However experienced barristers and expert witnesses for
Jereth’s case are expensive, and essential to run the best defence possible for
himself and other medical practitioners.
Legal challenges are
expensive. The Medical Board has Government funding behind it. Jereth can’t
defend himself alone – He needs your help.
Please prayerfully consider
this need.
All money raised will be put
into a legal trust account to run Jereth’s case. Any leftover funds will be
donated to the general work of HRLA.
Thank you.
"Hi, this is Jereth! Thank you for
reading my story, and for your prayers and support. It’s important that my
story is shared widely, so please share this page with others who can add their
support.”[1]
As I said I have known Jereth for a few years now and
talked with him about many issues, including this ordeal he is going through.
He is a true man of God, with a clarity of vision about what the word of God
says, and he has not shied back from speaking the truth of the scriptures publicly.
Many people have said over the years that if this or that
is wrong with the medical industry why don’t more medical professionals speak out? Well, here
is your answer, because if they do they risk losing everything. It is such a hard qualification to get, those who speak out risk the loss of a level of investment many people cannot fathom. Supporting
Jereth is important because not only does it protect him from losing his
medical license, it will give further support to other medical professionals
who feel their conscience driving them to speak out against evils done in the name of health. Medicine is a science, to
have speech about medicine restricted for ideological reasons is to effectively
kill the ability for true science to happen.
If you can donate to his legal fund that would be great.
If you can’t please pray. This is truly a spiritual battle. Jereth's conduct trial essentially
breaks down to the idea that Christians will only be allowed to practice
medicine if they don’t publicly bring their faith into certain aspects of
medicine, aspects which desperately need a Christian voice. So Jereth’s fight is not just against an unjust disciplinary process,
but against principalities and powers over this present darkness, but as
powerful as they are, Christians praying in unison are more powerful. Please
pray for this man, and please consider donating.
List of References
[1] https://www.givesendgo.com/GT59
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