A foreign-trained doctor has been stood down and a senior administrator has been sacked over allegedly botched operations at a central Queensland hospital.
Rockhampton Hospital’s director of surgery has also been suspended, with authorities calling in external investigators to review all the operations performed by the doctor at the centre of the controversy.
At least four operations have been called into question.
The cases
Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service board chairman Charles Ware said the hospital and health department had launched an investigation of all the surgeon’s cases since allegations emerged that the wrong kidney was removed during an operation earlier this year.
Mr Ware said the investigations had revealed another patient was left in a serious condition after an artery was nicked during an operation.
The patient was transferred to Brisbane suffering massive blood loss, but was now “safe”.
The third involved a misdiagnosed twisted testicle, while the fourth centred on a stent inserted at the incorrect site.
“Our priority in this whole incident has been the patients, so there is two are at risk and they are safe,” he revealed on Fairfax Radio 4BC Mornings.
“We have removed the surgeon from our system. They no longer have the right to practise at Rockhampton Hospital.”
Sackings
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg told parliament the board had also sacked its acting executive director of medical services and suspended the director of surgery at the hospital.
“This comes on top of its decision late last week to stand aside a surgeon involved in the incident,” he said.
“… The surgeon stood aside last week is a specialist who received training in Australia and received his Australian credentials in 2011.
“He has worked in the public health system and in private practice.”
Doctor X
Mr Springborg said the doctor, who had trained in Europe before gaining his Australian credentials, might still be working in private practice.
“This person doesn’t only work for us. They also do private work as well. We have taken the action. Maybe it’s also right for other employers to do a similar thing,” he said in answer to a question over the incident.
Opposition Health spokeswoman Jo-Ann Miller called on the the government to name ‘Dr X’.
“The people of Rockhampton and the people of Queensland want to know the identity of this particular doctor,” she said.
“It is not good enough for the minister for health to play political ping pong between himself, who was ultimately responsible, and Rockhampton Hospital and the Hospital and Health Services Board.”
The investigation
Mr Ware said the incidents had been reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, the Crime and Misconduct Commission, and Queensland’s independent health watchdog, the Health Quality Complaints Commission.
It has triggered three separate investigations into what and how the surgical mistakes were made and missed.
The health and hospital services board will conduct “a root cause analysis” to review its handling of the matter.
An independent inquiry will investigate four cases involving the same surgeon stretching back to 2011, when he received his Australian credentials.
And the Health Quality and Complaints Commission, which will soon be scrapped and replaced with the Health Ombudsman, will “investigate whether wider systemic issues” exist.
Systemic problem
When asked on Fairfax Radio 4BC Mornings if the Rockhampton Hospital had a “systemic problem”, Mr Ware said: “Yes there is.”
“We’re aware of the situation and we’re taking action to restore patient safety quality systems,” he said.
Mr Ware said a new chief executive officer had been hired along with a new director of quality and safety since an earlier incident involving a pregnant woman.
Rockhampton Hospital was also in the headlines last year after pregnant woman Emma Green was turned away from the hospital. Ms Green later had a stillbirth.
An external consultancy firm had been hired to conduct an independent review “to tell us the extent of our problems”.
Mr Ware said the investigation into the alleged botched surgeries has not started.
“[But] it will get to the bottom of these,’’ Mr Ware said.
“We have an incident management team that has been reviewing all of this surgeon’s case history and that’s what we’ve found so far.
“We have asked the [Queensland Health] director-general to exercise his powers under our legislation to appoint an independent external investigator. That is being done and that will produce a clinical analysis of what went wrong.”
Community rocked
The member for Rockhampton, Labor’s Bill Byrne, said the community’s confidence in their health service had been rocked.
“When you see the situation over the last many months, this dispute with SMOs and other senior medical staff, it paints quite a disruptive picture for the way Queensland Health and the various hospital boards are operating,” he said.
“And one which is not conducive to confidence in the community.”
Source: Sydney Morning Herald