A GOONELLABAH GP will be tried next March on a charge of raping a patient.

Dr Prasanna Mishra, who lives at Alstonville and has worked at the Goonellabah Medical Centre since about April 2007, faces charges of indecently assaulting a patient and with having sexual intercourse with her without consent.

On the indecent assault charge, police have accused Mishra of having put the alleged victim’s ‘hand on his penis and masturbated himself’.

The assaults are alleged to have happened in November 2008 at Goonellabah.

Mishra is pleading not guilty to both charges.

Mishra was charged in February. He is on bail and continues to work at the medical centre, although the NSW Medical Board, after an investigation in January, put conditions on his practice.

Those conditions include a ban on providing medical services to women unless a chaperone, who is not related to him by birth or marriage, is present during the consultation.

The medical board’s conditions also require him to report to the medical board once a month with a list of all the women he treated during the previous month, including details of the services he provided and the name of the chaperone present for each consultation.

Delays in Mishra’s case reaching trial arose largely in the local court, where defence and prosecution lawyers had to wait for psychiatric reports on the doctor’s alleged victim.

Mishra was arraigned on November 11 and his case sent to the District Court.

Judge James Black on Wednesday agreed to change the dates for another trial already set down for the first half of 2010 to get Mishra’s case in front of a jury as soon as possible.

Mishra was not present for the mention of his case in the Lismore District Court.

His trial was set down by Judge Black to be heard at the Lismore District Court from Monday, March 22, next year.