Bravado of Dr Death led to fatal complications, nurse tells inquiry

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.

Speaking on the opening day of a state government inquiry into how Patel was allowed to practice medicine in Australia's Queensland state despite having been cited for gross negligence in the US states of Oregon and New York, Hoffman said the Indian-born surgeon's "bravado" and desire to carry out complicated procedures got him and his patients into trouble.

"It was also just his whole persona, his whole bravado about things," she said.

"Dr Patel was wanting to do very complex and large scale surgeries which really didn't fit within our scope of practice," Hoffman told the inquiry at the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

And when complications some of them fatal set in, he would cover them up by falsifying his notes,

Hoffman alleged.

A report by the Queensland health department last week linked Patel to the deaths of at least 67 patients during his two-year tenure at rural Bundaberg Base Hospital, where he was hired in 2003.

The report identified an additional 96 cases that needed further investigation.

Patel left Australia in April, and his whereabouts are unknown. He has not commented on the inquiry or the allegations against him and has no legal representation at the inquiry.

Shortly after Patel started work in Bundaberg, a small farming town 306 kilometres north of Queensland's state capital Brisbane,

Hoffman said she noticed an unusually high rate of complications resulting from his operations.

In one case, a female cancer patient suffered "complete evisceration of her intestines" when her surgical wound fell apart three days after an operation to partially remove her colon, according to Hoffman's written statement submitted to the inquiry and obtained by the Associated Press.

A man in his 70s who underwent an esophagectomy a partial removal of the oesophagus carried out by Patel had to undergo surgery three more times when his surgical wound also unravelled. Asked by the commission's lawyer, David Andrews, how many times she had previously seen this particular complication in her 20-year career, Hoffman replied: "Probably about once."

The man died six months later, she said.

In fact, Patel's complication rate was so high that the hospital's renal specialist, Peter Miach, barred Patel from operating on any of his patients, Hoffman said.