Criminal Code does not recognise misdiagnoses as potential criminal acts
Criminal Code does not recognise misdiagnoses as potential criminal actsAs India-born Dr Jayant Patel, dubbed 'Dr Death' awaits his sentence today for the manslaughter of three patients and causing grievous bodily harm of a fourth at Bundaberg (Queensland, Australia) between 2003 and 2005, the judge has warned that the guilty verdicts handed down on Monday may not survive in Queensland's Court of Appeal.
Justice John Byrne has indicated that the jury's verdicts might not survive due to the Criminal Code, which does not recognise misdiagnoses and wrongful decisions to operate as potential criminal acts.
Manslaughter carries a life sentence in Queensland but there is little case law for a doctor found guilty of criminal negligence due to killing someone as a result of an operation.
From the start of the proceedings, Judge Byrne has also been highlighting a possible flaw in the prosecution's case against the surgeon on the issue of consent.
Dr Patel's legal team is reportedly trying to take the fight to the Court of Appeals for a ruling on the correct statutory route to convict a surgeon of manslaughter.
When disgraced Dr Jayant Patel is sentenced to a jail term of up to 10 years today, it will, by no means, be the end of his travails.
In all probability, the convicted Bundaberg (Queensland, Australia) Base Hospital head surgeon will have to undergo the agony of at least one more trial for causing grievous bodily harm to another patient, Darcy Blight, and eight fraud counts also related to his time at the hospital for fraudulently getting and keeping his job.
Moreover, up to 14 other deaths at the hospital could be referred to a coroner's inquest by a jury of between seven and 11 people of both sexes.
|
| What next? Jayant Patel has been found guilty of killing three patients and permanently injuring another. Pic/AFP |
Following the verdict of the 12-person (six men and six women) jury which deliberated for seven days in the 14-week long case after five years of legal hearings involving 76 witnesses, the longest in the Queensland Supreme Court's history, Jayant Patel spent his first night behind bars on Tuesday night as a convicted killer.
The jury had deliberated for 48 hours over 6 and days before delivering guilty verdicts to the manslaughter of Kemps (77), James Phillips (46) and Mervyn Morris (75). It also found he had caused grievous bodily harm to Ian Rodney Vowles (62).
The prosecution alleged Patel was criminally negligent in that the operations were the wrong procedures for patients who weren't well enough to cope. It was not alleged that the surgery itself was incompetent.
In all cases, the prosecution alleged Patel had told no one he was under an order in the US not to perform complicated surgery without a second opinion.
The case rocked the Australian media and medical profession during its labyrinthine course after the surgeon's flight and refuge in Oregon and the protracted legal and political battle that eventually led to his extradition to Australia.
Even as wives and other relatives of the dead wept in the courtroom as the verdicts were delivered, Dr Patel's wife Kishoree sobbed uncontrollably in the court's interview room.
Born in Jamnagar, Gujarat, Jayant Mukundray Patel (60) studied surgery at the MP Shah Medical College of Saurashtra University, where he obtained a master's degree.
He later received further surgical training at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in the US.
While working at a hospital in Buffalo in 1984, New York health officials cited Patel for failing to examine patients before surgery.
He was fined $5,000 (Rs 2.3 lakh) and placed on three years' clinical probation.
In 1989, Patel moved to Oregon where medical staff at Kaiser Permante Hospital in Portland alleged that he would often turn up, even on his days off, and perform surgery on patients that were not even his responsibility. In some cases surgery was not even required, and caused serious injuries or death.
After a review, the hospital banned him from doing liver and pancreatic surgeries and requiring him to seek second opinions before performing other surgeries.
Following further irregularities, New York State health officials asked him to surrender his licence in April 2001 after which he moved to Queensland, Australia.
On an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) 7:30 Report last evening, interviewees expressed vindication and relief after the verdict but they felt the "price that you have to pay is too great".
A woman exclaimed: "Life, life, life, life He's taken so many lives so therefore he has to pay with his own life." A man agonised: "We've all suffered and it should never, ever, ever have gone on."
The Queensland government assured that the Patel verdict would result in tighter checks on overseas-trained staff and greater public scrutiny of medical professionals.
The programme's presenter, Kerry O'Brien, termed it a "landmark verdict in a long and sorry saga". He said Dr Patel was a doctor "with a prodigious work ethic could cut through long waiting lists and generated more funds for the hospital, but his two years were marked by complaints, controversy and death".
He said within weeks after it came to light in 2005 that 14 patients at the Bundaberg hospital (it had been unable to fill the position for almost a year) had suffered serious complications after being treated by the surgeon, he resigned his job, paid for a one-way business class ticket and fled home to the US.
Victim John Vowles asked, "I'd just like to ask him why he done it when there was no need to. It's like he's buggered my life for no reason. He didn't have to."
