MORE MEDICAL MESS FROM THE SOCIALIZED SECTOR OF AUSTRALIAN MEDICINE

Two current articles below

19th century medicine in a 21st century public hospital: Four days to diagnose a broken bone!

X-rays? Who cares about x-rays? That's all too hard!

Wide Bay mother Sharon Eggmolesse says it's not good enough that Bundaberg Hospital took four days to diagnose a painful break in her son's foot. Ms Eggmolesse told The Courier-Mail she had taken Jaeden, 9, to hospital on May 12. "His foot had swollen up and he couldn't walk on it at all," she said. After X-rays were taken, Ms Eggmolesse was told Jaeden could have jarred ligaments. He was sent home bandaged and on crutches with a direction to see his general practitioner in three days.

Ms Eggmolesse said that while they were at their GP, with Jaeden "in considerable pain", the hospital advised her husband it had now received an X-ray report from a radiologist saying a bone in Jaeden's foot was broken. She said she was told by her GP, who sought a second opinion, that Jaeden should have had his foot plastered straight away.

When she queried the delay with the hospital, she was told there was no radiologist on site and that Jaeden's X-rays, like those of all patients, had been sent off site. A radiologist in Victoria had detected the broken bone.

Queensland Health said the delay was not a symptom of the worldwide shortage of radiologists, which has prompted a private imaging clinic in Townsville to offer a salary package just shy of $1million in an effort to attract a radiologist. Rather, a Queensland Health spokesperson said only nine Queensland Health sites were staffed with radiologists. Nine other hospitals, including Bundaberg, used private providers; in Bundaberg's case, Medical Imaging Australia.

Ms Eggmolesse said her son had follow-up X-rays at a local private hospital, where the results were available the same day.

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Your regulators will protect you -- in their usual bored way

Complaints about a mad doctor since 1986 but he was not deregistered until 2004. And he hurt lots of people in those 18 years of official sleep

The NSW Health Minister, Reba Meagher, has twice told Parliament no background checks were done on the rogue doctor at the centre of the Butcher of Bega scandal, despite a Government report confirming a month ago the Health Department knew of an issue with his obstetric practice when it hired him. Ms Meagher - who had refused to make the report public until yesterday - repeated in Parliament two weeks ago that no background checks were done on Graeme Reeves before he was employed as an obstetrician at two South Coast hospitals in 2002 despite being banned from the specialty in 1997. Police are investigating hundreds of serious allegations against Mr Reeves of sexual assault and botched procedures, including genital mutilation.

On May 15, Ms Meagher insisted no checks were done by the Greater Southern Area Health Service after the Herald revealed documents that showed a senior health executive hired Mr Reeves despite making a diary note of a referee telling him Mr Reeves was "not meant to do obstetrics". A report by the judge Deirdre O'Connor, dated May 2, stated that the Health Department should have directly contacted the NSW Medical Board to check his registration after the referee's warning and that its failure to do so was "the main oversight". The department had conducted a criminal record check.

The Opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, called for Ms Meagher, who is overseas on holidays, to apologise for misleading Parliament. "Health Minister Reba Meagher has twice misled Parliament . where she said there's been no checks done . this report from Deirdre O'Connor clearly shows that there was a document among the papers that showed there'd been a reference check where it was pointed out that Dr Reeves was not supposed to do obstetrics," Mrs Skinner said.

The Health Department yesterday refused to discuss the diary note, as did a spokeswoman for Ms Meagher. "I'm just not going to have this conversation . she has not misled Parliament. She said from the beginning that no appropriate background checks have been carried out and the matter is now being investigated so we'll leave it there," the spokeswoman said. Both shunted blame for the delay in releasing the report onto the Garling health inquiry.

The O'Connor report confirmed executives at GSAHS knew Mr Reeves had been illegally practising obstetrics at Bega and Pambula hospitals as early as November 2002, and again twice in January 2003, but allowed him to continue in gynaecology until July 2003. The report shows the full extent of complaints made against Mr Reeves by medical staff and patients dating back to 1986 at Hornsby Hospital, and demonstrates a spectacular failure by NSW Health organisations to communicate. Mr Reeves was not deregistered until 2004.

Ms O'Connor's report recommended a review of information sharing and giving the Medical Board and HCCC greater powers to pursue and monitor doctors.

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