Struck off podiatrist convicted for posing as practitioner on national TV, treating patients

A disgraced former podiatrist has been convicted of posing as a registered healthcare practitioner after he treated patients and appeared on national television, warning viewers of the perils of pointy shoes while he was suspended.

Heassan Al Hamid continued to work as a podiatrist, made several media appearances and promoted his practice on social media for 18 months after his suspension in February 2024, Parramatta Local Court heard.

“Many of the patients Mr Al Hamid treated were vulnerable, including children, individuals with intellectual disability who were non-verbal or had reduced capacity to communicate, and patients with impaired mobility,” the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, which prosecuted Al Hamid, said on Tuesday.

There is no suggestion that any patients were harmed during this period, AHPRA said.

Al Hamid was introduced as a podiatrist on the Seven Network’s Sunrise program in July 2025, in which he voiced concern about people with wide feet wearing pointy, narrow shoes, and discussed the biomedical assessments he performs on his patients.

When the breakfast TV segment featured on ABC’s Media Watch later that month, a Seven spokesperson said in a statement, “[W]e did receive and review qualification documentation from this guest before his on-air appearance”.

Al Hamid has been fined $6000 and ordered to pay AHPRA’s legal costs of $8831.

AHPRA chief executive Justin Untersteiner said the case prompted the regulator to write to media organisations last year, urging them to check the register of practitioners on the regulator’s website before promoting anyone who claimed to be authorised or qualified to practise in a health profession.

“The register lists every practitioner who is authorised and qualified to practise in Australia,” Untersteiner said. “It also shows when a practitioner has been suspended or had restrictions or conditions placed on their registration to protect the public.”

In March, Al Hamid’s registration was cancelled by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct after he breached conditions on his practice by providing unsupervised podiatry services on 311 occasions between June 2023 and January 2024.

The tribunal also found that Al Hamid failed to provide the Podiatry Council with training and education records (including CPR and anaphylaxis management certification) and evidence of indemnity insurance, and made false or misleading statements to the council on nine occasions between July 20, 2023, and February 1, 2024.

Al Hamid had been suspended in June 2023 after anomalies were uncovered in payment applications he made to the NSW Government-funded organisation, EnableNSW, for orthotics totalling $143,345.

As a result of the discovery, Al Hamid underwent a performance assessment, which found that he was not competent in six areas: professional code of conduct, patient assessment and care planning, critical thinking and decision-making, documentation, duty of care, and infection control practices.

The assessors believed that Al Hamid “is practising at such an unsatisfactory level that he poses a significant risk to the public”, and the Podiatry Council imposed restrictions on his practice, including supervision orders, according to court documents.

A Seven spokesperson told Media Watch that as soon as they were made aware of the matter, they removed the content from digital platforms, and were reviewing their verification processes for professional qualifications.

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