Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Queensland - mad doctor magnet?

What is it about Queensland and foreign doctors? First the awfully over-enthusiatic Dr Patel, whose Wikipedia entry notes that, even before he landed in Australia:
Medical staff 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 to the patient.
Then there was the case of the fake Russian psychiatrist working at Townsville hospital:
The Australian newspaper today published allegations that a bogus doctor engaged to work as a psychiatrist at the Townsville Base Hospital in North Queensland is a convicted paedophile. The newspaper claims that in 1987, Vincent Berg was jailed in the Soviet Union for indecently dealing with boys, and later deported from the United States after being accused of stealing church ornaments.

He was also allegedly defrocked as a Russian Orthodox priest in his home country.

When contacted by the newspaper, Mr Berg denied any wrongdoing and said the KGB had fabricated the allegations.
More recently, Cairns hospital had some youngsters with questionable qualifications:
Queensland's chief health officer, Jeanette Young, is investigating how the Cairns Base Hospital hired four foreign junior doctors before their credentials were checked by the medical board....

..a newspaper report alleging that one of the employees used an online medical degree from the Caribbean to get the job, while a Chinese woman's documents show she would have started medical school at the age of 14.
And finally, we get our very own doctor from Gold Coast hospital arrested and being investigated for possible connections with the mad (alleged!) doctor bombers of England. (Of course, he may end up being found completely innocent of anything, but it's not a good look.)

The big mystery is: why does this run of foreign doctors gone wrong stories seem centred on Queensland out of all of Australia? Sure, it adds a certain potential air of drama and excitement to visiting a public hospital here, as you wonder whether all the possible ways that Queensland foreign hospital doctors have been in trouble have yet been exhausted. I mean, about the only thing we haven't discovered yet is that Josef Mengele's grandson, who qualified in surgery under the guidance of faith healer Arigo ("surgeon of the rusty knife") in Brazil, has been stealing kidneys from Jewish patients. (OK, there aren't many Jews in Queensland, but they holiday here from Melbourne sometimes, surely.)

It's all very odd, if you ask me.

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