Doctors felt Bottrill 'past it'

By FIONA BARBER

Doubts about the health and performance of Dr Michael Bottrill were circulating in Gisborne before the pathologist retired in 1996.

Some doctors switched from using his laboratory to one with an external checking system.

An official inquiry into Dr Bottrill's reading of cervical smears starts in Gisborne today. Its findings could have implications for the whole $25 million national cervical screening programme, and possibly for tests for other cancers.

The Weekend Herald revealed that ACC is investigating claims that Dr Bottrill's laboratory may have missed other types of cancer.

Alliance health spokeswoman Phillida Bunkle said the claims supported her belief that the inquiry should be widened. But the Health Funding Authority said it had been aware of the claims when it decided to confine the inquiry to cervical screening.

East Coast MP Janet Mackey - one of 1500 women who have been advised that a re-examination of their tests revealed cell abnormalities - said there had been a "general feeling that Dr Bottrill might be past it."

But had there been any evidence, "every health professional would have taken the appropriate steps through appropriate organisations and would be beating down my door."

However, Gisborne GP Dr Johan Peters said the medical centre in which he practised had enough concerns to switch from Dr Bottrill's laboratory when a service became available at the city's hospital.

He said doctors knew Dr Bottrill had been ill and was becoming elderly but they did not have enough firm information to warrant action. "If you know, you have a responsibility to the community as well as the ill doctor to do something about it. When the hospital laboratory started having community laboratory services, we used that."

Dr Peters added: "We knew at that time that his lab didn't have external quality controls."

The funding authority, which buys services, did not insist on such controls until 1996.

Dr Bottrill's misreadings came to public attention after a High Court case last year in which a woman unsuccessfully sued him for gross negligence. The judge has since granted her a retrial.

During the original trial, Dr Bottrill said his short-term memory had deteriorated after heart surgery in 1990 and he was forced to write scores of reminder notes to himself.

After publicity about the case, health officials ordered rescreening of almost 22,000 cervical cancer tests done between 1991 and March 1996.

Mrs Mackey said the question that needed to be answered now was: why was Dr Bottrill reading the slides?

"Why was this elderly man who didn't want to be working hard, who didn't need the money, why was he reading all these slides on his own?"

She found it sad that it had come down to one person.

"I think there's a collective responsibility. We're talking about a health system here, about a whole range of people involved in the process."