back

Victims' widows confused by report

Hedley Thomas, The Courier-Mail, 1 July 2005

Queensland Health officials needed to start talking to rogue surgeon Jayant Patel's victims instead of just shuffling papers if the whole truth about his incompetence was to be uncovered, victims' widows said yesterday.

The wives of three of the eight victims whose deaths were, for the first time, directly linked to Dr Patel's negligence in the Queensland Health review released on Wednesday said they were more confused than enlightened by its findings.

Tess Bramich, Judy Kemps and Erlinda Nagle, whose husbands all died after being operated on by Dr Patel, said they thought the 155-page review seemed premature and so "huge" they had not yet been able to wade through it.

At the same time, Ian Brown, the Carter Capner Lawyers legal advocate for the Bundaberg Hospital patient support group, described the whole concept of the report as "curious, right from day one".

"I mean, unless you're going to actually interview patients and verify the veracity of what's in the records, I don't see how any report that's prepared could be in the least accurate," Mr Brown said.

The audit focused on Dr Patel's clinical skills during his tenure at Bundaberg Hospital from April 2003 until he fled Australia in April this year. In that time he performed 1177 operations.

From these, just 221 patients' charts were audited, representing 15 per cent of his overall patient total.

"What questions are being asked and answered?" Mr Brown said. "That's the starting point. Unless you really interview a patient and ask questions about what's in the records and interview other people involved, I don't see how you can possibly prepare a report."

Mrs Bramich said no one from Queensland Health had been to see her, and Mrs Nagle said she was having trouble coming to terms with the daily avalanche of information.

Mrs Kemps said she had not yet had time to read through the whole report.