More than 100 Sydney cancer patients given wrong chemotherapy doses, report confirms

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St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst, Sydney

A damning report handed down by NSW Health has slammed St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney for responding too slowly to cancer patient mistreatment concerns. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

More than 100 cancer patients were given incorrect doses of chemotherapy by a senior doctor at St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney, a report has found.

NSW Health handed down a damning final report into the dosing scandal on Tuesday, revealing that senior oncologist Dr John Grygiel had under-prescribed doses of cancer treatment drug carboplatin to 129 people, 103 of whom were head and neck cancer patients between 2012 and 2014.

That’s up on the 78 patients identified in an interim report in April, led by Cancer Institute NSW boss Professor David Currow, which slammed the hospital for responding too slowly to mistreatment concerns.

On Tuesday the scandal also engulfed two more Sydney hospitals.
The NSW health minister, Gillian Skinner, revealed three haematology patients at St George and Sutherland hospitals in the city’s south had been affected by a doctor’s deliberately wrong chemotherapy treatment.