Battler bites back in saga of dental horror

He's charming, has a million-dollar smile, convinces patients to have more complicated treatment than they need - and he's been struck off the dental register three times.
The list of professional misconduct charges against Suresh Patel reads like a horror story, but the former Whangarei dentist is fighting the latest Dental Disciplinary Tribunal ruling to chuck him out.
Despite pleading guilty to a raft of examples of misconduct and incompetence, Mr Patel has filed an appeal against the March 15 decision.
The decision related to work on patients at the Kowhai Court Dental Centre between 1998 and 2000, and a practice he later had in Auckland.
Much of that work included procedures such as crowns, bridgework and root canals that Mr Patel had been banned from doing.
In the aftermath of botched dentistry and years of suffering, some patients who became witnesses in later disciplinary action were horrified to learn Mr Patel had already been struck off the dental register - and been allowed to re-register - in the past.
Former Whangarei resident Stephanie Carman, who now lives in Napier, has battled for eight years to see Mr Patel exposed and disciplined.
Mrs Carman had years of reconstructive dental surgery to repair damage caused when she went to Mr Patel in 1999. That was paid for by ACC after Mrs Carman filed a successful medical misadventure claim.
She was one of three main witnesses in the case brought against Patel last month by the Dental Association's Complaints Assessment Committee.
That action began after Mr Patel was the subject of a TV programme in 2003 for the shocking standard of work carried out on an elderly Whangarei couple, the late Victor and Joan Elson-White. The programme had focused on how Mr Patel had been struck off in 2002 over the Elson-White case.
That ruling was overturned last year and his three-year deregistration reduced to a four-month suspension, followed by limits that included supervision and mentoring. In the High Court in October 2002 Justice Randerson stated Mr Patel's removal from the register had been "grossly disproportionate to the gravity of his history, even taking into account his disciplinary history".
Because of the tribunal's decision being overruled, Mr Patel can claim he has only been struck off twice.
Even so, there was his first striking-off in 1994 after being convicted for filing 34 fraudulent claims to ACC. He was also sentenced to six months periodic detention and ordered to pay $10,700 reparation.
But Mr Patel had already been censured for professional misconduct in the form of dishonesty in 1991, two years after graduating from Otago University, and censured and fined again in 1991 for not giving antibiotics to a child patient with a known heart condition.
There was another censure and fine in 1993 for failing to meet adequate clinical standards and, in 2003, further conditions placed on the dentistry services he could offer after his clinical standards were again found lacking.
In between were deals - in Mrs Carman's case involving letterboxes and pre-arranged times - to give refunds to patients who complained or threatened to go to Mr Patel's professional body.
Among many official complaints Mrs Carman successfully levelled against Patel were his failure to keep and produce dental records, undertaking procedures he'd been banned from doing, fracturing teeth, falsely explaining how the fractures happened, falsely representing his qualifications, experience and ability.
He had also claimed the "superior" crowns he used were imported from Hong Kong when they had been made in New Zealand.
He had failed to fully inform his patient about treatment, aftercare and outcomes, and had applied poorly fitting crowns and bridges, causing the patient longterm pain and speech problems.
Jo Hughson, the barrister who, on behalf of the Dental Council's Complaints Assessment Committee, presented Mrs Carman's and two other former patients' summary of facts to the latest hearing, confirmed Mr Patel had filed an appeal against the decision to strike him off.
Mrs Carman is appalled that Mr Patel still has the right to appeal. She said she had felt enormous relief when he pleaded guilty at last month's hearing.
"His lawyer said at the time his client wanted to save the Carmans the stress of testifying, and now he is appealing the result," Mrs Carman said.
"I think it's disgusting he can even consider appealing ... that there might be some chance he could re-apply for registration.
"I believe, given this man's history, the Dental Council itself should be hauled over the coals for allowing him back after one earlier disciplinary action, let alone all of them," Mrs Carman said.
"They took away my choices by hiding all this and protecting his right to practise.
"I would never have gone to him had I known about his past, or even known that he had to have mentoring and supervision.
"People need to know about him."