Hasil's supervisor won't help train another doctor

DR ROMAN Hasil's former supervisor says he will no longer offer supervision to overseas doctors, despite being asked to do so.
Dr Hasil resigned from Wanganui Hospital earlier this month, after six women became pregnant despite undergoing sterilisation surgeries performed by him.
As an overseas doctor with a general registration, Dr Hasil was required to have supervision in order to practice in New Zealand.
At the time, Whanganui District Health Board said that supervision did not require direct oversight but "mentoring and consulting regularly" over cases.
However, Hutt Hospital gynaecologist Mark Stegmann last week told the Wanganui Chronicle revelations about Dr Hasil had made him feel he was being blamed for doing a "bad job" and that he was no longer in a position to offer supervision to others.
As a result he had now pulled out of supervising a second doctor who would soon arrive at Wanganui Hospital, he said. He believed that publicity would make it even harder for hospitals like Wanganui to find supervisors for foreign doctors, as doctors would fear to be implicated if their charge got into trouble.
Mr Stegmann was Dr Hasil's supervisor from August 2005 until February this year, continuing continued to supervise him even when he left Wanganui Hospital as another doctor had declined to do the job.
Supervision was done voluntarily and performed in addition to a doctor's other duties, he said.
Mr Stegmann also feared for the impact the failed sterilization surgeries would have on Wanganui Hospital, which was already struggling.
"My first thought was for the women and for Wanganui ? I thought here we go again, another nail in the hospital's coffin," he said.
The gynaecologist took up a position at Hutt Hospital last October, because he was "fed up" with Wanganui Hospital's inability to attract staff.
Dr Hasil's position had been vacant for six years before he took it and there were now three more positions to fill, Mr Stegmann said.
Foreign doctors now comprised up to 40 percent of the medical workforce, but most of these had not come to New Zealand from highly-qualified, well-paid positions but would be doctors from backgrounds like Dr Hasil, Mr Stegmann said.
"Who else would we take?" he said.
"The real question is where are the New Zealand doctors and what is the Government doing about getting more and more to work in the provinces?"
The Whanganui District Health Board declined to comment about supervision yesterday as it was being investigated as part of an inquiry into Dr Hasil.