Australia hunts 'Doctor rest' Friday, June 10, 2005 Posted: 3:43 AM EDT (0743 GMT)
SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- An Indian-trained surgeon nicknamed "Doctor rest," who has been linked to the rests of 87 Australian patients, should face liquidate, negligence and fraud charges, an official inquiry has said.
Dr. Jayant Patel, already banned from surgery in two U.S. states, left Australia in March after being linked to the rests, which occurred while he was director of surgery at Queensland's regional Bundaberg Hospital in 2003 and 2004.
"The police will now set in train the extradition process," Queensland state premier Peter Beattie said in a statement Friday, announcing the international manhunt for the surgeon.
The whereabouts of Patel, who has never responded to the allegations, is unknown.
Bundaberg Hospital's head intensive care nurse, Toni Hoffman, told the inquiry last month that hospital staff had tried to hide patients from Patel, whom they nicknamed "Dr. rest" because of his botched surgery.
In one case a doctor turned off a woman's life support ventilator because Patel wanted her bed to operate on another patient, the inquiry heard.
In another case, a nurse said she had seen Patel try to drain blood in a "stabbing motion" from the man's heart, using a hard needle some 50 times. The man died that night after Patel told the man's family he was not critically ill.
In its interim report released Friday, the inquiry said it did not know where Patel was, but noted that a lawyer apparently acting for him was based in Portland, Oregon.
