November 17, 2025 • 18 mins
A blockbuster new podcast from The Australian and our investigative star reporter Hedley Thomas: Sick To Death is the horrifying true story of a surgeon who made catastrophic mistakes - and went unchallenged by a broken system. Hedley Thomas is here for a special episode to mark the launch of Sick To Death, available now in Apple Podcasts and at sicktodeathpodcast.com
This is an episode of our daily news podcast The Front, presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Kristen Amiet and edited by Joshua Burton with Lia Tsamoglou. Our team includes Kristen Amiet, Lia Tsamoglou, Tiffany Dimmack, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombes and Jasper Leak, who also composed our music.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, It's Claire Harvey from The Australian. I'm jumping into
the feed to let you know there's a new Headley
Thomas show live right now on Apple Podcasts and The Australian.
It's called Sick to Death and it's the true story
of Australia's own so called doc to Death. Headley and
I chatted about it on our daily news podcast, The Front.
We're going to play that conversation for you and to
(00:21):
listen to Sick to Death, go to Sick to Death
podcast dot com or search Sick to Death in Apple Podcasts.
Are subscribers here episodes first. You can sign up today
or link your existing The Australian subscription within Apple Podcasts
to start listening right now. Here's my conversation with Headley,
(00:47):
Australia's favorite podcaster. The Australian's own national chief correspondent, Headley
Thomas is back on the air today with Sick to Death,
an exploration of one of the most remarkable stories of
the sense how a surgeon was implicated in the death
and serious injury of scores of patients and earned himself
(01:07):
the nickname DoD to Death. Today, the Australians bringing Headley's
book by the same name to life with a gripping
piece of audio storytelling.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
My name is Headley Thomas.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
In two thousand and five, my reporting exposed shocking medical
negligence at the heart of a major healthcare system. An
overseas trained surgeon who was nicknamed docor Death by the nurses,
doctors and hospital administrators left patients mutilated, incapacitated, even dead.
(01:41):
Sick to Death is based on my book of the
same name, and it's the true story of doctor Jan
Patel's lies and manipulation and the herculean effort it took
to finally stop him.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Indian born American surgeon jay and Patel was director of
surgery at the Bunderberg Base Hospital between two thousand and
three and two thousand and five. The reporting of Headley Thomas,
plus the courage of whistleblowing nurse Tony Hoffman and crusading
local MP rob Messenger, brought Patel's misconduct to light. A
Commission of inquiry in November two thousand and five found
(02:21):
thirteen patients died because of his negligence and many more
suffered complications.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
The United States Marshals collected the doctor from a Portland
prison on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Morning, they took him to Los Angeles. Pattel was extradited
from the US to Australia to face trial, and was
convicted and jailed in Queensland in twenty ten on three
counts of manslaughter and one of grievous bodily harm that
related to surgeries on four patients. The convictions were quashed
on appeal in twenty twelve after the High Court ruled
(02:55):
he'd suffered a miscarriage of justice, triggering his release from prison.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
The sixty two year old was released from jail last
Friday after the High Court found a gross miscarriage of
justice occurred during his trial in twenty ten.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
In the trial, allegations were made not only about my
competence as a doctor, were also going to the root
of my character and my descency as a human being.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
After two failed retrials, one of which resulted in a
manslaughter acquittal, Queensland prosecutors dropped all criminal medical negligence charges
against Pateel in twenty thirteen, and he pleaded guilty to
four counts of fraud. He admitted lying to Queensland authorities
by hiding his American disciplinary history to get the Bunderberg
(03:44):
job and was given a two year suspended prison sentence.
He flew out of Australia the following day.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
AM long and very difficult journey. I'm pleased that you saw,
and I'll be going back to my life and my word.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
In twenty fifteen, a Queensland tribunal ordered Patel never be
registered in a medical profession in Australia again. And now
we've found him in Portland, Oregon, where Patel now lives.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
My name is Ellie Dudley.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I'm a Patel was out for a walk when he
was approached by our reporter Ellie Dudley and our videographer
Quint Brewer. I'd really love to sit down and interview
you and chat about the events in Bunderberg in the
early two.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
Thousand Agoah completely forgot about it and I'm beyond that.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Yeah, I would really love to.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Sit down with you as has done this history.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
And hear about your what you've got to say about
what happened. You've got nothing to say.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
No, no, no, I don't react to stupid criticism, So
I'm on my life.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah. Do you think you were treated poorly or.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Don don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Helly, what was your response to hearing that from Jan
pattel Well.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I think he was trying to put a brave face
on what must have been one of the most incredibly
painful chapters in his life. A man with an oversized ego,
very bombastic and confident and manipulative and dishonest surgeon who
came to Australia having lied about his background in the
(05:33):
United States, having lied about the negligence and the investigations
that led to him being very severely disciplined and barred
from practicing the surgery that he then decided that he
would practice in Australia in a public hospital when he
was welcomed with open arms, And when he said that,
(05:54):
when he said he'd forgotten, well do we ever forget
something like that? Imagine his life was upended, the lives
of many other people had been ended by his surgery,
and he went to jail, he served time behind bars.
So I don't think he was being truthful when he
said he had forgotten about it.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
This story was absolutely enormous. It went around the world,
and of course it captivated Australians and I think it
shook some of our faith in the health system that
we do like to trust.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But your work at.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
The Brisbane Career Mail at the time started, like a
lot of stories do, with something very simple at Google search.
Tell me about the genesis of the story and what
did you google?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, well, back then, Claire, it was April two thousand
and five and smartphones were something you know, I don't
think we actually knew of if we used mobile phones, sure,
but they didn't have the capacity for Internet and downloads a.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Big data file. So I had been.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
In Bunderberg, this regional city short flight from Brisbane. I'd
gone up there to investigate the concerns of a nurse
who had been in touch with me, Tony Hoffman. This
nurse had told me about a surgeon that she said
was dangerous, was killing patients.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Heddley met other nurses, including Karen Jenner, who told him,
of course, doctor Bateell didn't become a bad surgeon overnight.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I asked her what do you mean by that, and
she said, well, you know, he's in his fifties, he's
been practicing surgery for a long time.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
He didn't become this bad overnight.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And I said, in front of Tony and Karen and
the other nurses who had taken a big risk after
their shifts to come and talk to me, said, so,
do you mean that where he's practiced previously, there's probably
going to be similar issues. There'll be a trail of problems,
badly damaged patients where he's previously worked. And they all said, yeah, absolutely,
(08:05):
that's right, that's what they'll be. And I couldn't sleep
that night in this little budget motel in Bunderberg because
I kept thinking about that comment and what it possibly meant.
And the next day I flew back to Brisbane and
as I said, we didn't have smartphones, so I had
(08:25):
to go.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Back to my desk in the newspaper building. I wanted
to go.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Straight home, it had been a difficult assignment, but instead
I went to my desk to perform that online check.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It was a Google search. I literally googled Dr J.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Patel and disciplinary history or words to that effect, and
a PDF with the details of Dr Patel's disciplinary record
and the findings against him in Portland, in the United
States and in New York State suddenly appeared and I realized,
(09:03):
holy crap. And that day, well, that night, we scrambled
to remake the front page and write a feature article
about it with the headline why.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Didn't they check?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You went on to win the Gold Walkley twice, Australia's
highest honor for journalism. You're one of the world's most
respected investigative journals. Did that experience of googling something that
I think as a journalist you might have thought, of
course they would have checked that. Of course people would
have checked. That teach you something about asking those basic
questions that you might assume have already been answered.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Absolutely, I mean if I as a journalist. Two years
after Patel's employment at Bunderberg Hospital, two years in which
he's been the subject of internal complaints, there were even
issues raised in the State parliament. First person to discover
that he's got this terrible record in the United States,
(10:06):
which meant that he shouldn't have been employed to prepare
a cut finger, let alone to sophagectamies and other very
serious operations. It just underlines why journalism can make such
a powerful difference. We need to come along and keep
doing those and asking questions.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Coming up. The whistleblower who worried Headley would think she
was crazy, she.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Became known as the whistleblower. But for the people of
Bundenberg and Queensland, Tony Hoffman risked everything to save their lives.
A nurse in the local hospital, Tony stood alone against
doctor Bottel, a senior surgeon who she believed responsible for
the deaths of pace. She fought hard to be heard.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Something that's a characteristic of your journalism is forming relationships
of deep trust and friendships really with whistleblowers and sources.
In this case, it's Tony Hoffman, the nurse who you
spoke about, who's carried a very heavy burden from being
the person who blew the whistle on Jan Betel. You've
done a lovely interview with Tony as part of this
(11:23):
series where she talks about your first face to face
meeting where she was very emotional. You know, she was
very worried, she was very afraid, but she was trying
to get you to trust her and to believe it
even though she was very upset, she was telling the truth.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
I mean, I was frightened. I was living on adenaline.
I was talking really fast. I was so scared. I
was crying all the time. So I was emotionally distraught.
So I was presenting myself like that, So it's hard
for people to understand that you can still be credible
(12:00):
but be emotional.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That's a really interesting dynamic, isn't it the journal who
needs to be able to trust your sources. But often
people who blow the whistle are, because of the trauma
of doing that, very emotional. They seem that they might
not be credible. Did you know from the start that
you could trust Tony?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I had a gut feeling that I could trust Tony,
but we were wary of each other. And often that's
the start of a relationship with your source or whistle
blowing contact. You're really trying to work out what the
potential weaknesses are and whether the person looks like they've
lost their marbles because of the fact they've been trying
(12:45):
to blow the whistle about something of great importance and
public interest for a long time and no one's listening,
or whether they've lost their marbles and they're just making
stuff up. With Tony Hoffman, I believed her because I
had myself done quite a lot of reporting before meeting
Tony about Queensland Health, and I was aware of the
(13:09):
incredibly deceptive and downright dishonest conduct of senior people in
Queensland Health in covering up big problems. I'd also done
a lot of reporting on the challenges facing patients and
health administrators when it came to overseas trained doctors. Australia
(13:33):
had and still has a great shortage of doctors, so
we were importing doctors from overseas. We needed them, particularly
in areas of need, rural and regional areas, and Queensland
needed them more than anywhere at that time, but we
were not properly vetting the doctors. And I had done
a series of stories back in that period, shortly before
(13:56):
I broke the Betel story, and that series focused on
how overseas trained doctors without proper credentials, who hadn't been
checked out thoroughly and had been given jobs of responsibility,
had caused a lot of harm and it was being
swept under the rug. And I remember when I started
(14:17):
writing those stories and asking questions to develop those stories,
getting some raised eyebrows from people and having to sort
of answer their questions about whether this was some kind
of racist line and reporting where we were attacking the
overseas trained doctors, many of whom were from countries like India,
(14:41):
and Pakistan and so on, because they weren't white and
nothing could be further from the truth. It was about
upholding standards of care and ensuring that the Australian public
was protected. But what we discovered as a result of
the inquiries that were held after the Hell scandal really
blew up was that in Queensland we were not just
(15:04):
getting doctors from overseas who were incompetent. We were employing
people who pretended to be doctors, one of whom was
a Russian fellow who had no experience in psychiatry and
had been employed as a psychiatric registrar and had done
a lot of damage to the patients by telling them
(15:25):
all they didn't need their medication. And he got away
with this for a long time, and a number of
psychiatrists who assessed him said, oh, we.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Thought it was pretty good. It'd never been to medical school.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
We've worked together at The Australian for years now and
we've made quite a few of your big investigations. We
always seem to do it the hard way. I think
that's you, that's your fault. And in this one, we've
brought this story to life with nearly two hundred voice actors,
a beautiful production led by our audio lead Jasper Leak
and supported by producers Kristin Amyot, Stephanie Coombs and leott Semaglue.
(16:04):
It sounds absolutely beautiful. You and I have talked a
lot over the years about why audio is a great
way to tell big stories like these, long stories like this.
What do you think it is about sick to death
that lends itself to a listen rather than a read.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's a chilling story, and there's intimacy and partnership, you know,
for a journalist who back in two thousand and five,
I was thirty eight, I was probably you know, well
cynical by then, but I wasn't prepared for what was
uncovered in that saga.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
We were able to lift.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
The lid on that as a result of this crisis
surrounding a doctor Patel in a regional hospital, which just
then widened into a massive and I think veryortan't investigation
of the entire health system, and it showed what can
(17:06):
be made possible when you start with something small and
the damage and the ripples go out. And these lessons
are still around today, Claire. Some things have changed for
the better. Some things haven't and we need to be
constantly reminded of this. I am in no doubt that
(17:27):
across Australia today there will be doctors, surgeons and people
pretending to be doctors who shouldn't be there, who are
incompetent or fraudulent, who are just impostors, and we have
to be always vigilant about that.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Ketley Thomas is the Australian's National Chief correspondent and his
investigation Sick to Death is available now at Sick todethpodcast
dot com, in Apple podcasts and in the Australians Mobile
app
Hi, It's Claire Harvey from The Australian. I'm jumping into
the feed to let you know there's a new Headley
Thomas show live right now on Apple Podcasts and The Australian.
It's called Sick to Death and it's the true story
of Australia's own so called doc to Death. Headley and
I chatted about it on our daily news podcast, The Front.
We're going to play that conversation for you and to
(00:21):
listen to Sick to Death, go to Sick to Death
podcast dot com or search Sick to Death in Apple Podcasts.
Are subscribers here episodes first. You can sign up today
or link your existing The Australian subscription within Apple Podcasts
to start listening right now. Here's my conversation with Headley,
(00:47):
Australia's favorite podcaster. The Australian's own national chief correspondent, Headley
Thomas is back on the air today with Sick to Death,
an exploration of one of the most remarkable stories of
the sense how a surgeon was implicated in the death
and serious injury of scores of patients and earned himself
(01:07):
the nickname DoD to Death. Today, the Australians bringing Headley's
book by the same name to life with a gripping
piece of audio storytelling.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
My name is Headley Thomas.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
In two thousand and five, my reporting exposed shocking medical
negligence at the heart of a major healthcare system. An
overseas trained surgeon who was nicknamed docor Death by the nurses,
doctors and hospital administrators left patients mutilated, incapacitated, even dead.
(01:41):
Sick to Death is based on my book of the
same name, and it's the true story of doctor Jan
Patel's lies and manipulation and the herculean effort it took
to finally stop him.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Indian born American surgeon jay and Patel was director of
surgery at the Bunderberg Base Hospital between two thousand and
three and two thousand and five. The reporting of Headley Thomas,
plus the courage of whistleblowing nurse Tony Hoffman and crusading
local MP rob Messenger, brought Patel's misconduct to light. A
Commission of inquiry in November two thousand and five found
(02:21):
thirteen patients died because of his negligence and many more
suffered complications.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
The United States Marshals collected the doctor from a Portland
prison on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Morning, they took him to Los Angeles. Pattel was extradited
from the US to Australia to face trial, and was
convicted and jailed in Queensland in twenty ten on three
counts of manslaughter and one of grievous bodily harm that
related to surgeries on four patients. The convictions were quashed
on appeal in twenty twelve after the High Court ruled
(02:55):
he'd suffered a miscarriage of justice, triggering his release from prison.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
The sixty two year old was released from jail last
Friday after the High Court found a gross miscarriage of
justice occurred during his trial in twenty ten.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
In the trial, allegations were made not only about my
competence as a doctor, were also going to the root
of my character and my descency as a human being.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
After two failed retrials, one of which resulted in a
manslaughter acquittal, Queensland prosecutors dropped all criminal medical negligence charges
against Pateel in twenty thirteen, and he pleaded guilty to
four counts of fraud. He admitted lying to Queensland authorities
by hiding his American disciplinary history to get the Bunderberg
(03:44):
job and was given a two year suspended prison sentence.
He flew out of Australia the following day.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
AM long and very difficult journey. I'm pleased that you saw,
and I'll be going back to my life and my word.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
In twenty fifteen, a Queensland tribunal ordered Patel never be
registered in a medical profession in Australia again. And now
we've found him in Portland, Oregon, where Patel now lives.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
My name is Ellie Dudley.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I'm a Patel was out for a walk when he
was approached by our reporter Ellie Dudley and our videographer
Quint Brewer. I'd really love to sit down and interview
you and chat about the events in Bunderberg in the
early two.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
Thousand Agoah completely forgot about it and I'm beyond that.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Yeah, I would really love to.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Sit down with you as has done this history.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
And hear about your what you've got to say about
what happened. You've got nothing to say.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
No, no, no, I don't react to stupid criticism, So
I'm on my life.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah. Do you think you were treated poorly or.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Don don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Helly, what was your response to hearing that from Jan
pattel Well.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I think he was trying to put a brave face
on what must have been one of the most incredibly
painful chapters in his life. A man with an oversized ego,
very bombastic and confident and manipulative and dishonest surgeon who
came to Australia having lied about his background in the
(05:33):
United States, having lied about the negligence and the investigations
that led to him being very severely disciplined and barred
from practicing the surgery that he then decided that he
would practice in Australia in a public hospital when he
was welcomed with open arms, And when he said that,
(05:54):
when he said he'd forgotten, well do we ever forget
something like that? Imagine his life was upended, the lives
of many other people had been ended by his surgery,
and he went to jail, he served time behind bars.
So I don't think he was being truthful when he
said he had forgotten about it.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
This story was absolutely enormous. It went around the world,
and of course it captivated Australians and I think it
shook some of our faith in the health system that
we do like to trust.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But your work at.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
The Brisbane Career Mail at the time started, like a
lot of stories do, with something very simple at Google search.
Tell me about the genesis of the story and what
did you google?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, well, back then, Claire, it was April two thousand
and five and smartphones were something you know, I don't
think we actually knew of if we used mobile phones, sure,
but they didn't have the capacity for Internet and downloads a.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Big data file. So I had been.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
In Bunderberg, this regional city short flight from Brisbane. I'd
gone up there to investigate the concerns of a nurse
who had been in touch with me, Tony Hoffman. This
nurse had told me about a surgeon that she said
was dangerous, was killing patients.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Heddley met other nurses, including Karen Jenner, who told him,
of course, doctor Bateell didn't become a bad surgeon overnight.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I asked her what do you mean by that, and
she said, well, you know, he's in his fifties, he's
been practicing surgery for a long time.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
He didn't become this bad overnight.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And I said, in front of Tony and Karen and
the other nurses who had taken a big risk after
their shifts to come and talk to me, said, so,
do you mean that where he's practiced previously, there's probably
going to be similar issues. There'll be a trail of problems,
badly damaged patients where he's previously worked. And they all said, yeah, absolutely,
(08:05):
that's right, that's what they'll be. And I couldn't sleep
that night in this little budget motel in Bunderberg because
I kept thinking about that comment and what it possibly meant.
And the next day I flew back to Brisbane and
as I said, we didn't have smartphones, so I had
(08:25):
to go.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Back to my desk in the newspaper building. I wanted
to go.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Straight home, it had been a difficult assignment, but instead
I went to my desk to perform that online check.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It was a Google search. I literally googled Dr J.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Patel and disciplinary history or words to that effect, and
a PDF with the details of Dr Patel's disciplinary record
and the findings against him in Portland, in the United
States and in New York State suddenly appeared and I realized,
(09:03):
holy crap. And that day, well, that night, we scrambled
to remake the front page and write a feature article
about it with the headline why.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Didn't they check?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You went on to win the Gold Walkley twice, Australia's
highest honor for journalism. You're one of the world's most
respected investigative journals. Did that experience of googling something that
I think as a journalist you might have thought, of
course they would have checked that. Of course people would
have checked. That teach you something about asking those basic
questions that you might assume have already been answered.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Absolutely, I mean if I as a journalist. Two years
after Patel's employment at Bunderberg Hospital, two years in which
he's been the subject of internal complaints, there were even
issues raised in the State parliament. First person to discover
that he's got this terrible record in the United States,
(10:06):
which meant that he shouldn't have been employed to prepare
a cut finger, let alone to sophagectamies and other very
serious operations. It just underlines why journalism can make such
a powerful difference. We need to come along and keep
doing those and asking questions.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Coming up. The whistleblower who worried Headley would think she
was crazy, she.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Became known as the whistleblower. But for the people of
Bundenberg and Queensland, Tony Hoffman risked everything to save their lives.
A nurse in the local hospital, Tony stood alone against
doctor Bottel, a senior surgeon who she believed responsible for
the deaths of pace. She fought hard to be heard.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Something that's a characteristic of your journalism is forming relationships
of deep trust and friendships really with whistleblowers and sources.
In this case, it's Tony Hoffman, the nurse who you
spoke about, who's carried a very heavy burden from being
the person who blew the whistle on Jan Betel. You've
done a lovely interview with Tony as part of this
(11:23):
series where she talks about your first face to face
meeting where she was very emotional. You know, she was
very worried, she was very afraid, but she was trying
to get you to trust her and to believe it
even though she was very upset, she was telling the truth.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
I mean, I was frightened. I was living on adenaline.
I was talking really fast. I was so scared. I
was crying all the time. So I was emotionally distraught.
So I was presenting myself like that, So it's hard
for people to understand that you can still be credible
(12:00):
but be emotional.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That's a really interesting dynamic, isn't it the journal who
needs to be able to trust your sources. But often
people who blow the whistle are, because of the trauma
of doing that, very emotional. They seem that they might
not be credible. Did you know from the start that
you could trust Tony?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I had a gut feeling that I could trust Tony,
but we were wary of each other. And often that's
the start of a relationship with your source or whistle
blowing contact. You're really trying to work out what the
potential weaknesses are and whether the person looks like they've
lost their marbles because of the fact they've been trying
(12:45):
to blow the whistle about something of great importance and
public interest for a long time and no one's listening,
or whether they've lost their marbles and they're just making
stuff up. With Tony Hoffman, I believed her because I
had myself done quite a lot of reporting before meeting
Tony about Queensland Health, and I was aware of the
(13:09):
incredibly deceptive and downright dishonest conduct of senior people in
Queensland Health in covering up big problems. I'd also done
a lot of reporting on the challenges facing patients and
health administrators when it came to overseas trained doctors. Australia
(13:33):
had and still has a great shortage of doctors, so
we were importing doctors from overseas. We needed them, particularly
in areas of need, rural and regional areas, and Queensland
needed them more than anywhere at that time, but we
were not properly vetting the doctors. And I had done
a series of stories back in that period, shortly before
(13:56):
I broke the Betel story, and that series focused on
how overseas trained doctors without proper credentials, who hadn't been
checked out thoroughly and had been given jobs of responsibility,
had caused a lot of harm and it was being
swept under the rug. And I remember when I started
(14:17):
writing those stories and asking questions to develop those stories,
getting some raised eyebrows from people and having to sort
of answer their questions about whether this was some kind
of racist line and reporting where we were attacking the
overseas trained doctors, many of whom were from countries like India,
(14:41):
and Pakistan and so on, because they weren't white and
nothing could be further from the truth. It was about
upholding standards of care and ensuring that the Australian public
was protected. But what we discovered as a result of
the inquiries that were held after the Hell scandal really
blew up was that in Queensland we were not just
(15:04):
getting doctors from overseas who were incompetent. We were employing
people who pretended to be doctors, one of whom was
a Russian fellow who had no experience in psychiatry and
had been employed as a psychiatric registrar and had done
a lot of damage to the patients by telling them
(15:25):
all they didn't need their medication. And he got away
with this for a long time, and a number of
psychiatrists who assessed him said, oh, we.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Thought it was pretty good. It'd never been to medical school.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
We've worked together at The Australian for years now and
we've made quite a few of your big investigations. We
always seem to do it the hard way. I think
that's you, that's your fault. And in this one, we've
brought this story to life with nearly two hundred voice actors,
a beautiful production led by our audio lead Jasper Leak
and supported by producers Kristin Amyot, Stephanie Coombs and leott Semaglue.
(16:04):
It sounds absolutely beautiful. You and I have talked a
lot over the years about why audio is a great
way to tell big stories like these, long stories like this.
What do you think it is about sick to death
that lends itself to a listen rather than a read.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's a chilling story, and there's intimacy and partnership, you know,
for a journalist who back in two thousand and five,
I was thirty eight, I was probably you know, well
cynical by then, but I wasn't prepared for what was
uncovered in that saga.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
We were able to lift.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
The lid on that as a result of this crisis
surrounding a doctor Patel in a regional hospital, which just
then widened into a massive and I think veryortan't investigation
of the entire health system, and it showed what can
(17:06):
be made possible when you start with something small and
the damage and the ripples go out. And these lessons
are still around today, Claire. Some things have changed for
the better. Some things haven't and we need to be
constantly reminded of this. I am in no doubt that
(17:27):
across Australia today there will be doctors, surgeons and people
pretending to be doctors who shouldn't be there, who are
incompetent or fraudulent, who are just impostors, and we have
to be always vigilant about that.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Ketley Thomas is the Australian's National Chief correspondent and his
investigation Sick to Death is available now at Sick todethpodcast
dot com, in Apple podcasts and in the Australians Mobile
app
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