A DOCTOR based in the Australian state of Queensland was last night found guilty of the manslaughter of three patients and the grievous bodily harm of a fourth.
Dr Jayant Patel (60), who has been referred to in the Australia media as “Dr Death”, was chief of surgery at Bundaberg Base Hospital between 2003 and 2005.
He had pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Mervyn Morris (75), Gerardus Kemps (77) and James Phillips (46). Patel was also found guilty of permanently harming Ian Vowles (62) by removing his healthy bowel in October 2004.
Mr Kemps’s wife, Judy, spoke to reporters outside Brisbane’s supreme court after the verdict. “It’s over. It’s been a long five years . . . I can’t think, I’m just so happy. I’m free, I’m free,” she said.
“My only concern is that he would go somewhere else and do the same thing and I didn’t want anybody else to go through what we’ve been through.” There have been allegations that Patel was involved in other suspicious deaths at the hospital.