Very, Very Bad Medicine

June 15, 2005 12:07 PM

Australia Looks to US to help Hunt Dr. Death
Maybe its because he was living in Portland, Oregon in a million dollar mansion while an Australian inquiry charged Jayant Patel, dubbed Dr. Death by the Australian public, with murder, negligence and fraud. One Aboriginal patient developed gangrene after he left an amputation untreated for several weeks after the operation. [More inside]
posted by fenriq (8 comments total)

"In one case a doctor turned off a woman's life support ventilator because Patel wanted her bed to operate on another patient, the inquiry heard.

In another case a nurse said she had seen Patel try to drain blood in a "stabbing motion" from a patient's heart, using a hard needle some 50 times. The man died that night after Patel told the man's family he was not critically ill."

He's also been barred from practicing medicine because of negligence in Oregon and New York even though Kaiser Permanente defended his actions on three seperate occasions in the 90's before they restricted his practice in 1998 after reviewing 79 of his cases. He is, apparently, interested in telling his side of the story.

His present whereabouts are unknown, though the speculation is that he's returned to India which has no extradition treaty with Australia. Take a good look at his picture and make he's not your doctor or make sure your affairs are in order before going under his knife.

Not to be confused with the original Dr. Death.
posted by fenriq at 12:10 PM on June 15, 2005

While at Kaiser he operated on a friend of mine who was understandably nervous when she heard about his actions. It seems she was one of the lucky ones. What got me was the doctor in Australia who told the nurses to hide his patients in other parts of the hospital so Patel couldn't find them to operate on them.
posted by karmaville at 12:42 PM on June 15, 2005

What I want to know is, who is Kaiser Permanente?
posted by gurple at 12:46 PM on June 15, 2005

Yeah, very, very scary when other doctors and nurses are hiding your patients from you.
posted by fenriq at 1:03 PM on June 15, 2005

The local newspaper just reported on this guy, but mentioned in passing he had spent time in training in the NW. I guess it would have been too much effort to actually discover he was possibly one of their subscribers as well.

He left Australia in April, and his whereabouts are unknown. He has not commented on the allegations and has no legal representation at the inquiry.
posted by docpops at 2:09 PM on June 15, 2005

Strange, his whereabouts are well known as far as I know - he was shown on TV last night in Portland, Oregon talking to police at the front door of his home there.

One of the biggest problems the Queensland Government faces is that Dr Patel is a US citizen and the US is not known to be keen on handing over its citizens for other jurisdictions to try.

While I have no problem with this guy facing the consequences of his actions, I have always had a problem with retrospective legislation that makes something illegal after the fact, which is what had been done here. He is now facing possible muder charges, although what he did was not considered murder at the time he did it. Too much slippery slope potential there by far.
posted by dg at 8:04 PM on June 15, 2005

dg - the television media has been replaying that "talking to police" clip ad nauseum since he did he runner. I think it's the only shot they have of him...
posted by coriolisdave at 8:57 PM on June 15, 2005

No, the one I was last night was a different one and was in relation to a hit-and-run accident that he was involved in in the US. The reporting (and there has been a lot of it) here has been that they know where he is and are currently negotiating a deal with him and his Brisbane lawyers for his return to Australia without needing to resort to extradition.

This case is being used to cover up a lot of bad stuff that goes on in hospitals here - things like a friend of mine being blinded because a doctor wrongly medicated him and then sent him home 2 days after he suffered a stroke because it was Friday and they needed to close the ward over the weekend to avoid paying penalty rates for staff.
posted by dg at 9:51 PM on June 15, 2005