The Queensland Health Ombudsman acted “precipitately” when it disciplined a naturopath and Chinese medicine practitioner who injected ozone into a patient’s back muscles, a tribunal has found.

The case was based on the assumption that the patient’s worsening back pain was due to the practitioner injecting into the spine, which was not the case, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal found.

In a decision handed down this week, the tribunal awarded costs to the practitioner, who was restricted from offering ozone therapy for six months while the ombudsman completed a “slow” investigation.

The practitioner came to the ombudsman’s attention in October 2017 after a GP referred the patient to an ED following an CT scan which showed extensive gas in the dorsal paraspinal musculature.