Phony psychiatrist's havoc 'was hushed up' by the Queensland public health system

Your regulators will protect you -- NOT

A bogus psychiatrist with phony qualifications from the former Soviet Union worked for 12 months at the Townsville Hospital mental health unit, but his dangerous reign was hidden from the public in a cover-up by Queensland Health. The Morris inquiry was told yesterday that Vincent Berg treated at least 250 people, changed medication prescribed to patients by other psychiatrists and told patients with obvious mental problems that there was nothing wrong with them. The inquiry also heard one of his patients had committed suicide, while another who had been prescribed medication that caused dizziness died of a head injury after falling from a bed.

In his CV, Mr Berg said he was a refugee from the Soviet Union who had arrived in Australia in 1992. He claimed to have been a Russian Orthodox priest who had been persecuted by the KGB for his religious beliefs. Queensland Health's employment of Mr Berg was revealed publicly for the first time yesterday when the inquiry began hearing evidence in Townsville, shifting its focus from Jayant "Dr Death" Patel to problems with the public health system in north Queensland. Commissioner Tony Morris QC accused recently-sacked Queensland Health director-general Steve Buckland of deliberately withholding information about Mr Berg from the inquiry. Mr Morris said investigators had been forced to conduct "something of a raid" at Townsville Hospital to obtain evidence. The seized documents included emails from Dr Buckland warning staff not to give information on Mr Berg to the media, the police or the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission.

Townsville Hospital medical services director Andrew Johnson said that after Mr Berg left the hospital in early 2001 and his phony qualifications were exposed, he planned to publicise the story so that former patients who might have been mistreated by him could come forward. Dr Johnson said an audit by the hospital's psychiatric director John Allan in January 2003 identified 60 patients considered at high risk who needed to be contacted and reassessed. But Dr Johnson said he was told by district health manager Ken Whelan that the word had come down from senior management that neither the CMC nor the media should be contacted. He believed the order had come from Dr Buckland, then general manager of health services. Dr Johnson said Mr Berg, who started work at the hospital as a registrar in January 2000, had been registered by the Medical Board of Queensland. He claimed to have been a fully qualified psychiatrist in the Soviet Union and to have a medical degree from Voronezh State University. But investigations by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists in 2002 revealed the qualifications were forgeries.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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