A surgeon dubbed “Dr Death” in Australia for a string of botched operations was sentenced on Thursday to seven years in prison for killing three patients and permanently harming another.
A jury had convicted Indian-born US citizen Jayant Patel, 60, two days earlier of three counts of manslaughter and one of causing grievous bodily harm while he was a surgeon at a hospital in Queensland state from 2003 and 2005. The sentence comes more than 25 years after questions were first raised about Patel’s competency and ends a five-year saga for patients and their families who accuse Patel of irreparably damaging their lives.
At the trial, Patel was accused of being driven by a “toxic ego” to perform surgeries that US authorities had banned him from undertaking, of misdiagnosing patients and employing sloppy and antiquated techniques. “The community denounces your repeated serious disregard for the welfare of the four patients,” Justice John Byrne of the Queensland Supreme Court told Patel.
Prosecutor Ross Martin told a sentencing hearing on Thursday there was no record of a worse case of medical criminal negligence in Australia, and urged Byrne to imprison Patel for at least 10 years. Arguing for a suspended sentence with no prison time, defence lawyer Michael Byrne said Patel was a hardworking and well-intentioned man who had been humiliated during the long-running trial.
Patel faced a potential maximum of life in prison for the manslaughter of Mervyn John Morris, James Edward Phillips and Gerry Kemps, and the grievous bodily harm of Ian Rodney Vowles.