Killer doctors and nurses
Medical professionals are some of the most trusted and caring people in our community ty, but not all of them prefer to heal others.. ..
Dr Death
Queensland surgeon Dr Jayant Patel was found responsible for 13 deaths through negligence in a public inquiry into the deaths of 87 patients he was linked to in 2005.
However, when it came to prosecuting him, justice seemed elusive. In 2010, Patel was handed a seven-year jail sentence after being found guilty of the manslaughter of three patients in his care at Bundaberg Base Hospital.
He was also found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to one patient – Ian Vowles – after removing his healthy bowel, leaving him an invalid with a colostomy bag.
But the Indian-born surgeon, now 67, vowed he was innocent and was freed from jail in Brisbane in 2012 after his convictions were quashed.sed. The High Court ordered retrials and the first of those, surrounding the death of Mervyn Morris, 75, found Patel not guilty. A jury failed to reach a verdict in a second trial
for Vowles.
Patel had moved to Australia after a troubled career in the US. His licence to practise in New York was withdrawn in 2001 after he failed to examine patients before surgery.
He then moved to Oregon, where the hospital he was working at settled five cases between 1994 and 1998, two of which reportedly paid out more than $2 million each – each involving him.
Eventually, in November 2013, Patel pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud relating to dishonestly obtaining registration and employment as a doctor in Queensland.
Patel, nicknamed Dr Death, has been barred from practising medicine in Australia and has now returned to the US.