'Dr Death' turned off life support, inquiry told

SYDNEY - A doctor turned off a woman's life support ventilator in an Australian hospital because the director of surgery, dubbed "Dr Death", wanted her bed to operate on another patient, an inquiry has heard.

The government-sanctioned inquiry in the Australian state of Queensland is examining the deaths of 87 patients treated by Indian-trained Dr Jayant Patel.

Patel was director of surgery at Queensland's regional Bundaberg Hospital in 2003-04, despite negligence findings against him in two US states that resulted in restrictions on his US medical license.

Patel left Australia in March, 2005. His whereabouts are unknown.

Bundaberg Hospital's head intensive care nurse, Toni Hoffman, told the inquiry in the city of Brisbane Tuesday that hospital staff had tried to hide patients from Patel, whom they nicknamed "Dr Death" because of his botched surgery.

"All the nurses in intensive care were seeing these patients dying every day and we couldn't do anything," Hoffman told the inquiry according to transcripts available on Wednesday.

"We'd taken to hiding patients. We just thought 'What on earth can we do to stop this man', she said.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who set up the inquiry, has written an open letter to Patel asking him to return to Australia to answer the allegations against him.
"On behalf of the Queenslanders who allege that you have harmed them or their loved ones, I ask you to come forward immediately...," Beattie said in the letter posted on his website.

Hoffman said the "pivotal case" for her occurred in July 2004 when Patel blocked the transfer to another hospital of a 55-year-old man who was critically ill with chest injuries after being crushed under a recreational vehicle.

She said another nurse had told her she had seen Patel try to drain blood in a "stabbing motion" from the man's heart, using a hard needle some 50 times. The man died that night after Patel told the man's family he was not critically ill.

Another case Hoffman gave evidence on involved a woman who had suffered a serious head injury. She said Patel ordered her life support ventilator turned off five days before Christmas, 2004, because he wanted to use her bed for surgery.

She said no formal tests were performed to determine whether the patient was already brain dead, although another nurse said the woman was "most probably brain dead." The other patient operated on by Patel bled to death after his jugular was cut.

Hoffman said death certificates were falsified and patients were refused transfers to other hospitals to cover up botched treatment and surgery, adding Patel was also known as Dr E coli, referring to the high number of his patients with infections.

"What was going on was totally and utterly illegal," she said. The inquiry continues.

- REUTERS