A surgeon branded Dr Death by his colleagues in a rural Australian hospital regularly altered his patients’ charts to remove references of post-surgery complications, a senior nurse told an inquiry.

A WOMAN’S life support machine was turned off in an Australian hospital because the director of surgery wanted her bed to operate on another patient, an inquiry heard yesterday.

NURSES hid critically ill patients from an overzealous surgeon dubbed “Dr Death”, claiming he would stalk the intensive care unit searching for people to operate on, an inquiry in the Australian city of Brisbane was told yesterday.

Nurses hid critically-ill patients from an over-zealous surgeon dubbed “Dr Death”, claiming he would stalk the intensive care unit searching for people to operate on, an inquiry in Brisbane was told today.

ONE of his patient’s intestines spilled out of her stomach after surgery, another man’s wound unravelled three times. In more than 20 years as a nurse, Toni Hoffman had never seen a surgeon like Dr Jayant Patel.