Dr Death inquiry hearing set for Aug 2

Jayant Patel is the focus of an inquiry into why he was allowed to practice in Queensland despite being cited for negligence by medical boards.

An Australian hospital administrator's bid to shut down an inquiry into a surgeon blamed for the deaths of at least eight patients will be heard by a court next month, a judge ruled on Monday.

HT Image

Jayant Patel is the focus of an inquiry into why he was allowed to practice medicine in Queensland state, despite being cited for negligence by medical boards in the US states of Oregon and New York.

Dr Darren Keating, the suspended director of medical services at Queensland's rural Bundaberg Base Hospital where Patel worked for two years before he left the country in April, has filed legal action in the Queensland Supreme Court seeking the government-initiated inquiry be shut down, claiming the lawyer running it, Tony Morris, and his two deputies are biased. Several witnesses have testified at the inquiry that administrators including Keating did not heed their warnings about Patel's surgeries.

In the Queensland state Supreme Court Monday, Judge Martin Moynihan ordered that a three-day hearing be held from August 2. Meanwhile, the inquiry, which is in its second month, will continue to take evidence in the city of Bundaberg this week. In an interim report, Morris recommended that Patel be charged over the death of patient James Phillips, who died after Patel operated on him, a surgery several other doctors allegedly refused to perform because Phillips' poor health made it too risky. Police are combing through Patel's records but have not yet filed any charges.