Brooks used to have two ordinary email addresses – admin@andrewbrooks.com.au, on his website and andrew.brooks@sydney.edu.au.
Some months/years ago, the admin@andrewbrooks.com.au address was taken down from his website, but you could still use it to send emails, if you knew it, in the sense that if you used it to send an email it didn’t come back with the message that it couldn’t be delivered – not that he ever answered any emails sent using this email address. In nearly 5 years of dealing with him, in which at least 25 emails have been sent to him, we’ve only known him to reply to one of them, and that was to provide details on the mechanics of paying him his $3,200 fee for less than an hour’s work.
In fact, as we’ve mentioned before, when a complaint was made to the NSW Privacy Commissioner that he hadn’t replied to emails sent from a reader requesting copies of documents to which he was entitled to by law, Brooks excuse was that his email address was set up so that it “weeded out” emails from his patients so he didn’t get them – which, of course, the Privacy Commissioner accepted!!!
Sometimes you have to pinch yourself to try and make yourself believe that things like this are really happening!!!!!
But, now you’re even advised that emails sent using admin@andrewbrooks.com.au can’t be delivered. So, as far as contact details on Brooks’ website are concerned, he hasn’t even got an email form – just a fax number. So last Century!
And as far as the email address andrew.brooks@sydney.edu.au is concerned, probably Brooks hasn’t got any control over how this operates, but if readers haven’t realised by now that if anyone hasn’t acknowledged an email within 10 days at the most, they are absolutely certain to deny that they ever received it, and that, if it ever becomes relevant, Sue Dawson and her people at the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission are ALWAYS going to believe the health care worker, ALWAYS, and dismiss any claims made by us, the people, and that they are stark raving mad using doctors who only provide fax numbers when there are other suitable doctors who at least provide an email form, then there’s not much more we can say!!!
Readers, if a Doctor, (or anybody,) is prepared to put things in writing, it indicates that they are prepared to be ACCOUNTABLE for what they do and say, which is INCREDIBLY important. And, these days, emails are the easiest and most efficient way of putting things in writing. If Doctors don’t have at least an email form to use to contact them, don’t consider using them for a nanosecond. And if, when you’ve got to the stage of having a face-to-face consultation with them, you can’t send them an email along the lines of, “In my consultation with you today, I understood you to say blah blah blah, blah blah, blah. Is there anything I’ve left out?” and, at the very least, get a YES or NO answer from them, don’t go back. One of our readers keeps saying that every day he feels SO regretful that he wasn’t experienced enough to do this in his dealings with Andrew Brooks, 6 years ago. IT’S COST HIM SO SO MUCH!
This, to us, is the summation of what we’ve learnt in nearly 12 years of working to help ourselves and others to find the best health care workers, particularly Doctors, and to avoid those who are perhaps not the best.
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