KEY POINTS:
A woman had her ovaries removed by a rogue doctor without her knowledge and only discovered it had happened after a routine visit to her GP months later.
The revelations - reported in this week's Listener magazine - are the latest in a string of damaging health sector
headlines in the past fortnight, including damning reports on unsafe hospitals, preventable deaths and the care of Auckland psychiatric patients.
Health authorities in Wanganui are under fire for the handling of disgraced gynaecologist Roman Hasil, who has since moved to Australia after leaving a legacy of failed sterilisations and unconsented surgeries.
Eight tubal ligation surgeries failed; six women became pregnant - and some had no choice but to abort.
Up to seven other women went under Hasil's knife only to find out later that he had performed other surgical procedures on them without their consent.
A Health and Disability Commissioner report to be made public on Tuesday is expected to severely criticise the Whanganui District Health Board and investigate the case of the woman who had her ovaries removed without consent.
Commissioner Ron Paterson declined to comment until the report was released but it is expected to target weaknesses in the DHB's hiring processes, Hasil's supervision and the way complaints were handled.
But in a special Listener investigation this week, reporter David Fisher chronicles the saga of how Hasil came to work in New Zealand and the litany of lives he ruined through medical mishaps.
The hospital was also slow to reveal the extent of Hasil's sterilisation failures and never told the Wanganui public there were other surgical botch-ups of a serious nature.
Paterson's investigation also examined Hasil's unsuccessful sterilisations; eight of the 25 procedures he performed later failed, and six women became pregnant.
One woman who aborted her child told the Listener: "I basically had to murder somebody because some bastard put me in that situation. It won't go away."
The HDC report will focus its harshest criticism for the hospital board and management, rather than the disgraced surgeon, for its lack of openness and transparency.
John Rowan QC, who is organising legal action against the Whanganui DHB over the string of sterilisation failures, is also representing the woman who had her ovaries removed.
Others have come forward - women who discovered that Hasil had performed more procedures than they expected while unconscious under the knife - and Rowan said the number was between 10 and 15.
The Queen's Counsel had yet to see the HDC report but urged other women treated by Hasil to come forward quickly.
"It appears Dr Hasil was either incompetent or impaired when he carried out procedures," Rowan told the Herald on Sunday. "The DHB knew the situation was serious. When they needed to be open with patients, to put things right, the approach was guarded and indeed mean-spirited.
"That only deepened the hurt and concern these people had."
But there has been no publicly published review of the sterilisation cases, and no publicly released audit that spells out just how many problems Hasil has left behind.
A random audit of 20 patients was carried out in late 2006 but the hospital has refused to release the audit, or even extend the scope of the inquiry, although 20 patients are only a fraction of those Hasil would have treated.
Grandmother Fredericka Himmel is another woman who had her ovaries removed by Hasil but the case is not explored in Paterson's report.
Hasil told Himmel that she had lesions on her ovaries; after the hysterectomy was conducted no lesions were found. Before her ovaries were unnecessarily removed, Himmel had already experienced problems with Hasil when he became confused during an exploratory procedure.
"He couldn't find my cervix. That's a pretty poor show for a gynaecologist," she told the Listener.
A medical source told the Herald on Sunday that Wanganui hospital management failed to verbally check Hasil's references.
One referee failed to mention that Hasil had repeatedly failed tests to qualify as a gynaecologist in Australia, the source said.
Whanganui DHB chair Kate Joblin would not comment on the HDC report until it was made public on Tuesday.
She would not be drawn on the future of chief executive Memo Musa which is expected to be discussed at a board meeting on Friday.
Musa told Paterson, in a legal letter, that there was "no significant public concern" about Wanganui's hospital, the Listener reported.
A spokesman for David Cunliffe said the Health Minister had not seen the HDC report and would not be commenting on it until it was made public. Revelations of the problems at Whanganui DHB come shortly after a horror fortnight.
Paterson told a Parliamentary Select Committee that NZ hospitals were unsafe, a report into 182 serious mistakes was released and Auckland DHB apologised to the families of psychiatric patients who committed suicide.
