possums, disinformation, and market powers
Dr Pamela Douglas is now offering clinical services for parents and infants from a new Possums Clinic with her colleague and NDC Accredited Practitioner Bree Cosgrove at Generations Medical, Taringa, Brisbane. You can find out more here.
The charity Possums for Mothers and Babies is undergoing liquidation
I founded the charity Possums for Mothers and Babies Pty Ltd in February 2013. I resigned as a Board Director in June 2021 once I began to receive a salary from the charity. I tendered my resignation as Medical Director on 30 January 2023, due to grave and irreconcilable differences with the Board of Directors.
A new CEO commenced 22 November 2022. Throughout December 2022 in my documented or consensually recorded meetings with the CEO, and in January 2023 in my written and verbal reports to the Board of Directors, I addressed my grave concerns about solvency, and about the charity’s new directions, over which I now lacked control. I made recommendations that the charity must urgently downsize and stabilise, if it was to survive and thrive long-term. I communicated strongly to the Board that I could not support the business strategies being implemented, which included misrepresentations of facts. The Board of Directors did not respond to my concerns appropriately, after which I tendered my resignation.
I continued to own all of my intellectual property (the NDC or the Possums programs), most of which I'd generated without payment over the previous two decades and which I'd lent to the charity to use for as long as I consented. I'd personally trademarked multiple terms and programs which I'd created, including Possums, The Possums Clinic for Mothers and Babies, and Neuroprotective Developmental Care Accreditation, commencing 2012.
On 26 August 2023 when the charity was delivered back into the hands of an Interim Board of Directors which I chaired, it was clear the charity had gravely misrepresented itself to the public and health professionals after my departure, and was severely insolvent. I and the Interim Board were required to immediately freeze trading, and place the charity into Administration.
David Clouts & Associates (DCA), Administrators for the charity Possums for Mothers and Babies Pty Ltd, delivered a Report to Creditors, available to the public through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). This Report finds that Possums for Mothers and Babies Pty Ltd was trading whilst insolvent from January 2023, under a newly assumed trading name of 'The Possums Collective'. The PMB charity is currently undergoing liquidation by DCA.
Pam Douglas
14 October 2023, revised July 2024
Update November 2024
I emailed Scott Clout from DCA on 25 November 2024 querying a quote from him published in the medical media about the collapse of the Possums charity, which I'd just seen. The Possums charity was solvent at the time two Board members resigned late September 2022, and solvent up until about the time of my departure. The Department of Health and Aged Care (DOHA) paid its grant monies in advance for the NDC Rural project.
In the weeks prior to my resignation, I communicated to the Possums Board of Directors my grave concerns about what I considered to be inappropriate use of the DOHA grant monies from December 2022 to underwrite The Possums Clinic in Sherwood, which was running at a loss. However, I now lacked control or influence.
In the months after my resignation on 30 January 2023, I made personal contact with DOHA, met with my local Member of Parliament, and also submitted whistleblower's reports to both to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission and DOHA. I warned of the Possums charity's likely insolvency and my concerns about its unethical behaviours, which were misleading the public and health professionals. My report to DOHA warned of the high risk posed by the pending transfer of the next allocation of NDC Rural funding, due to occur 1 July 2023.
My reports were not heeded.
On 26 November 2024 Scott Clout of DCA wrote:
"We [DHA] were appointed on 30 August 2023. The two major creditors are the Department of Health and Aged Care and the ATO. The ATO debt recorded in the ATO’s records as owing at 30 August 2022 was $125,247. The amount owing to the Department (comprising grant funds paid in advance) was recorded in the company’s books as c.$241,000 at that time. Ultimately, the Department claimed the sum of $120,964. My recollection was that you also claimed a debt due to you that was incurred at or around the establishment of the charity. Those debts together comprise more than 50% of the total creditor claims and were incurred more than 1 year prior to our appointment.
Although the debts may have been incurred more than 1 year prior to our appointment, it does not necessarily follow that the company was insolvent at the time the debts were incurred or that it was trading whilst insolvent during the relevant period. The references to the date the company became insolvent (January/February 2023 per our report comments) and dates the debts were incurred are two separate issues. I hope [this] assists to clarify matters."
