This is the guy who had his licence revoked in the USA, then given a job in Aus...

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,12869909%255E310 2,00.html


Dr Death now pretending to be his brother

Hedley Thomas
16apr05

IN THE comfort of a grand home in Portland, Oregon, someone purporting to be the younger brother of the man dubbed Dr Death, Jayant Patel, has been giving telephone interviews to journalists.

He calls himself Jaydish. And he has a very high regard for Patel, whom he said had left for New York soon after being photographed by The Courier-Mail at the house.

"I know he had a brilliant career over here (in the US)," he said.

"He doesn't give a damn about Australia, probably. He has a lot of money and he just wants to travel around the world."

The man spoke of Patel's work in Australia ­ he called it "the Third World" (just as Patel had described it while working at Bundaberg Base Hospital) and the heroism he understood his so-called brother had performed after the tilt train derailment.

But within minutes of the interviews being broadcast in Australia, along with footage of a man standing at the front door of the home in North West Blue Grass Place, nurses and medical staff in Bundaberg began telephoning each other.

They independently reached the same conclusion: that the man claiming to be the brother of Patel was Patel.

"They are certain of it," Queensland Nurses Union secretary Gay Hawksworth said yesterday. "It seems to me that we have questions over his mental state."

The union organised for footage from the US to be shown to the nurses who were adamant that it was Patel, not any fictitious brother.

One of the nurses told The Courier-Mail: "It was definitely him. Believe me, we have listened to that voice for two years."

Just when it seemed the scandal over the discredited and dangerous fraud given a $200,000-a-year job as Bundaberg Base Hospital's director of surgery could not get more surreal, Patel's behaviour has confirmed what nurses suspected: he is delusional.

"His behaviour is psychopathic," said a medical source at Bundaberg Hospital.

Even when being questioned by chief health officer Gerry FitzGerald about a trail of deaths and serious injuries arising from his surgery, Patel's self-confidence was bullet-proof.

"His view was that everything was wonderful and he was looking after patients and doing a wonderful job," Dr FitzGerald recalled.

Patient Doris Hillier, who was left with dreadful infections and open wounds for between four and six weeks after surgery by Patel, described him as "a barbaric animal who just liked to operate on people for his own self-glory".

Hospital insiders recounted yesterday how Patel boasted of having worked for "15 years as a trauma surgeon in New York and many years as a cardio-thoracic surgeon", even as he botched relatively simple operations in Bundaberg.

"He continually talked about how fabulous he was at the top of his voice. The secretaries loved him because he bought them gifts and told them how wonderful he was."

He also told staff he had come to Bundaberg as part of his religion. He made himself known to the local Jehovah's Witness group and told them he knew all about their religion, and to call him if there was ever a problem.

His zeal to operate was so great that even patients who had refused procedures were overruled. One man, according to a hospital insider, was emphatic he did not want a procedure but Patel began calling around family members until he found a distant relative who authorised the surgery.

"One lady was booked to go to Brisbane to have a procedure," one medical staffer said. "Dr Patel found out and talked her into having it here. She had cancer of the oesophagus. She had the surgery and died in intensive care.

"That's what he was like. If he found someone in the ward, he would walk in and want to operate."