Patel ‘prioritised’ money over patients, tribunal told

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Jayant Patel was given a two-year suspended sentence for dishonestly obtaining employment

Jayant Patel was given a two-year suspended sentence for dishonestly obtaining employment registration. Pic: Patrick Hamilton/AFP/Getty Images) Source: AFP

THE Medical Board of Australia has asked a tribunal to ensure former Bundaberg surgeon Dr Jayant Patel is never again registered as an Australian medical practitioner.

It is alleged by the Board that Patel engaged in “deceit and manipulation” before being registered and working as a surgeon in Queensland.

Patel, 65, who returned to the US in 2013, did not appear at today’s Queensland Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal disciplinary proceedings.

Counsel for the Board, Dr Ian Freckelton QC, said Patel had not engaged in the disciplinary proceeding for a very long while, although he had every opportunity to do so.

Patel has not been registered in Australia since 2005 and the tribunal was told he is not practising in the US.

The Board is relying on nine grounds for disciplinary action, saying his conduct amounts to unsatisfactory professional conduct, and that the tribunal should order he not be registered again.

Some relate to his “deliberate non-disclosure”, in an application to the Medical Board of Queensland, of his suspension from practice in New York in 1984 and conditions on his practice in Oregon in 2000.

Dr Freckleton said Patel, who had been a surgeon in the US, dishonestly answered questions in his application for medical registration and re-registration in Queensland in 2003.

It is alleged he performed procedures on Queensland patients which he knew he had been restricted from performing in Oregon, before he came to Australia.

“It was by this exercise in deceit and manipulation” that Dr Patel secured entitlement to undertake procedures on patients in Queensland, Dr Freckelton said.

Patel had agreed to Oregon Medical Board conditions that he not perform some procedures and that he obtain a pre-operative second opinion before performing complicated surgical cases.

Patel was convicted and jailed in 2010 on three counts of manslaughter and the grievous bodily harm of a fourth patient.

Two appeals were rejected but in 2012 the High Court struck down the convictions.

Patel was acquitted of a manslaughter charge and a jury failed to reach a verdict on a grievous bodily harm charge.

All other charges were dropped in return for him pleading guilty to dishonestly obtaining employment registration, for which Patel was given a two-year suspended sentence.