Letter is deja vu for Patel victims

WHEN news of Bundaberg's Dr Death scandal started filtering through overseas there was one man who had heard it all before - outspoken former Kaiser Hospital physician Dr Charles Phillips.

The Oregonian, one of Oregon's largest daily newspapers, reported recently that 79 of Dr Jayant Patel's patients at the hospital were reviewed in 1998 leading to the US hospital restricting his practice.

The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners made the restriction statewide two years later.

Six Kaiser doctors in Portland gave Dr Patel favourable references - printed on Kaiser hospital stationery - according to a report in The Oregonian which prompted questions about whether they had known about Dr Patel's negligence.

Dr Phillips wrote to the paper about the scandal, revealing intimate knowledge of the Kaiser company.

He stated that with so many cases of negligence being reviewed, all those involved in the hospital "partnership" would have known about it.

"It would have been brought up many times at the secret monthly partnership tell-all meetings,'' he said in the letter.

"Dr Patel's continuous service at Kaiser after the incompetency would have been due to his economic contribution to the for-profit partnership.

"The full story may reveal that Dr Patel attracted external cash-paying patients to Kaiser for dubious surgeries.