Surgeon flees after complaints
Multiple patients complained and a surgeon threatened to quit before the Waikato District Health Board investigated a former employee.
Along the way, two patients needed further surgery and one said the orthopaedic surgeon’s manner left him feeling ‘‘embarrassed and humiliated’’.
Waikato DHB’s eventual investigation highlighted gaps in its recruitment and complaint systems, according to a Health and Disability Commission (HDC) report, released on Monday by commissioner Anthony Hill.
The orthopaedic surgeon at the centre – referred to as Dr B – resigned and left New Zealand while a review was under way. He couldn’t be contacted by the commission, despite attempts through Interpol and overseas medical licensing boards. Because of this, the HDC report focused on the health board.
Details of patient complaints are set out in the commissioner’s report, which includes an external review by Dr Margaret Wilsher. In 2015, Dr B asked a patient recovering from spinal surgery to do exercises which hurt her, then discharged her with no planned follow-up or physiotherapy.
The woman needed more surgery because of pain ‘‘attributed to the manoeuvres Dr B had instructed her to do’’. There were two cases where his patients needed ‘‘revision surgery’’ because his was inadequate. There were also complaints about him ‘‘losing his temper and shouting’’, failing to recommend appropriate surgery, and one patient felt humiliated by his manner. By February 2015, another orthopaedic surgeon wrote to management stating he would resign if his concerns around Dr B weren’t dealt with. An external review ‘‘was critical of Dr B’s technical expertise, clinical decision-making, professionalism, and communication’’. And the Waikato DHB breached patient rights, according to the commissioner’s report.
The health board said in the report that it was committed to ‘‘addressing the deficiencies that had been identified’’.
Dr B had been trained overseas and was taken on in 2012 as a locum consultant orthopaedic surgeon.