DR SHAMELESS
Victims’ families furious as death scandal GP finally appears in public – but doesn’t speak or say sorry
THE GP at the centre of the Gosport deaths scandal finally broke cover yesterday – but upset victims’ families by failing to apologise.
Jane Barton – who oversaw the practice of handing out powerful painkillers to hospital patients – insisted she was a ‘hard-working doctor’ who had ‘done her best’.
But relatives of those who died in atrocious circumstances criticised her lack of contrition and blasted her as ‘cowardly’.
A scathing report into the scandal at Gosport War Memorial Hospital last week concluded that hundreds of patients’ lives were shortened with strong opioids.
Dr Barton, 69, oversaw the doling out of potentially fatal doses of the drugs in scores of cases where they were ‘not clinically indicated or justified’.
Yesterday, the Oxford-educated doctor – dubbed ‘Dr Opiate’ – finally appeared outside her £700,000 home in a smart area of Gosport. She had not been seen since the week before the report was published.
Her husband Tim, 70, read the statement as she stood beside him staring fixedly ahead. Mr Barton said: ‘Jane would like to thank her family, friends, colleagues, former patients and others for their continued support through this protracted inquiry.
‘She has always maintained that she was a hard-working doctor doing her best for her patients in a very inadequately resourced part of the health service. We ask that our privacy is respected at this difficult time, she will be making no comment.’
Asked later why Dr Barton had not apologised to victims of the scandal, her husband, a retired Navy commodore, refused to comment. He referred all further queries to the Medical Defence Union, which offers legal services to medical professionals.
The Daily Mail has previously revealed documents that show the GP describing investigations into her conduct as a ‘hassle’. She has always denied causing or hastening the deaths of any of her patients.
Gillian Mackenzie, 84, who has campaigned for justice since the death of her 91-year-old mother Gladys Richards in 1998, said: ‘She is clearly on the defensive, but the place where she should be on the defensive is in a court of law, facing trial.’
Ann Reeves, daughter of Elsie Devine, who died at the hospital in 1999 aged 88, said if Dr Barton was unhappy with her work conditions, she should have left. The 72-year-old, from London, said: ‘I’m sad to hear she was underresourced, but I would say get out or look after patients properly.
‘We want to hear if she can justify the amount of morphine prescribed to patients who weren’t in pain.
‘She didn’t even do it [read the statement] herself – she got her husband to do it. She’s been protected for so long. I think it’s cowardly of her.’ Gillian Kimberley, 72, whose husband Robert Wilson died in the hospital in 1998 aged 75, said: ‘She didn’t say anything. She just went back inside – she’s not got the guts to speak.
‘She’s a very rude and arrogant woman. She owes it to the families to explain what happened.’
More than 450 people had their lives shortened after being prescribed powerful painkillers at the Hampshire hospital. Another 200 were ‘probably’ given opioids between 1989 and 2000 without medical justification, according to the Gosport Independent Panel.
The report claimed ‘there was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening lives of a large number of patients’. It stated there was an ‘institutionalised regime of prescribing and administering “dangerous doses” of a hazardous combination of medication’.
In 2010, the General Medical Council ruled that Dr Barton was guilty of multiple instances of professional misconduct relating to 12 patients who died at the hospital. She retired that year.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said police would examine any new material found in the report.
Hampshire Constabulary will hand over any new inquiry to a different force following criticism of its previous handling of the scandal. An announcement on which force will take over is expected this week.
Ann Reeves’ sister, Bridget Devine-Reeves, also criticised Dr Barton for failing to show any sympathy for the families of those who died at the hospital.
She said: ‘She has made no mention of the families or put any sense of empathy into her statement, which doesn’t surprise me as she never has done.
‘We have been here for a very long time and it’s very unfortunate, she will give her comment, the families will respond, it
‘Clearly on the defensive’ ‘Protected for so long’
shouldn’t go on like this, it should be in a criminal court.’ She is using an online funding campaign to try to pay for a barrister to pursue private prosecutions.
Doctors yesterday backed a vote of no confidence in their regulator, the General Medical Council. The move comes after a trainee paediatrician was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter over the death of Jack Adcock, six, who died from sepsis in 2011.
A tribunal ruled Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba should remain on the medical register, but the GMC faced an outcry after it took the case to the High Court and she was struck off in January.
It is the first time the British Medical Association has passed a vote of no confidence in the GMC since 2000. The Gosport scandal also showed the GMC was ‘not fit for purpose’, the annual meeting in Brighton heard.