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Home / New Zealand

Bogus psychiatrist Linda Astor is wanted over the death of elderly Polish patient

Natalie Akoorie
By Natalie Akoorie
Local Democracy Editor·NZ Herald·
2 Sep, 2017 05:00 PM4 mins to read

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Linda Astor in 2001. The fake psychiatrist who let an insane patient out of Hutt Valley Hospital in 1996 before he went on to kill his girlfriend, is on the run in her native Poland. Photo / File

Linda Astor in 2001. The fake psychiatrist who let an insane patient out of Hutt Valley Hospital in 1996 before he went on to kill his girlfriend, is on the run in her native Poland. Photo / File

A bogus psychiatrist who released a schizophrenic patient in Wellington who later beheaded his girlfriend, is under investigation in Poland over the death of an elderly man.

Linda Astor, a Polish transgender, is alleged to have carried out a string of deceptions in her home country since leaving New Zealand after Leslie Parr killed girlfriend Fiona Maulolo in April 1997.

Astor, a trained medical doctor who obtained a psychiatric post at Hutt Valley Hospital using false credentials, was running an outpatient clinic in Gorzow when she misdiagnosed Henryk Kirpluk in September 2015.

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in Poland, Astor allegedly diagnosed the 74-year-old with back pain despite his fever and sent him home with tablets for the pain.

Days later Kirpluk was rushed to hospital where a blood test confirmed sepsis from delayed treatment for a kidney infection. He died soon after.

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An investigation by Gazeta Wyborcza has also revealed Astor allegedly misdiagnosed a 3-year-old girl with a "barking cough", who was later found to have pneumonia, and a man suffering severe abdominal pain was sent home only to be diagnosed the next day with acute inflammation of the gallbladder.

Ten patients from the clinic have complained about Astor's treatment and Kirpluk's widow lodged a formal complaint with a prosecutor's office in Gorzow.

In January this year Astor was dismissed after mounting pressure from the complainants, the media and authorities, the Polish paper's investigation has reported.

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She disappeared again but in April Astor was found by police in Glogow, after being caught by a pharmacist allegedly trying to prescribe painkillers with prescription documents that belonged to her former employer.

Astor is reported to have told police she needed the drugs for her sick husband and was charged with falsely certifying two prescriptions.

But before the case could proceed to court Astor allegedly went on the run. Not only is she wanted by police but the 68-year-old is also wanted by medical authorities for questioning over the death of Kirpluk.

When Astor posed as a psychiatrist at Hutt Valley Hospital in 1996, she never met Leslie Raymond Parr before removing his six-month compulsory treatment order, issued nine days earlier by a court that decided he was too mentally unwell to face an assault charge.

Parr went on to kill Maulolo. He was later found not guilty of murder on grounds of insanity and was detained as a special patient at a secure unit in Porirua Hospital.

Before the tragedy, Astor became became the clinical director of mental health at Nelson-Marlborough Health Services.

She later left New Zealand and was arrested in the United States in December 2001 for shoplifting.

Astor was deported back to Poland over allegedly fraudulent immigration documents and turned up in 2003 at a hospital on the outskirts of Warsaw posing as a geriatric psychiatrist.

A year later in 2004 a New Zealand television crew tracked Astor down to the hospital in Tworki where she had again allegedly falsified her employment history.

During her time there Astor amassed a string of complaints from colleagues, which were largely ignored by her employer.

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They included allegations that she refused to admit a man with acute psychosis because she saw no indication he was unwell, diagnosing a manic patient with depression, and prescribing the wrong medication or the wrong doses.

The police became involved because Astor was already wanted after being arrested several years earlier in Warsaw's Praga district for obtaining money under false pretences by not paying for furniture she'd bought.

Astor resigned and disappeared again but at the request of the New Zealand TV crew, a Polish journalist took up the search, and helped police track down Astor in Warsaw in July 2005, where she was arrested.

Astor was also charged over gaining employment under false pretences at Tworki hospital and was sentenced by the Pruszkow District Court in 2006 to two years' imprisonment, suspended with a probation period of five years.

Her right to practise medicine was revoked but Astor appealed and it was reduced to four years' suspension.

In January 2015 the journalist tracked Astor to a radiology clinic in Warsaw where she was allegedly posing as a specialist gastroenterologist.

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She left soon after and went to the clinic in Gorzow where Kirpluk died.

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