Reba Meagher came to power on a lie. She was appointed as the anointed ALP member following an affair with a senior ALP member. She misrepresented an opponent's history to claim domestic violence threats had been made against her.
Now, her incompetence rewards NSW with the revelation NSW Health allowed a mentally ill surgeon to continue with his practise years after the authorities knew.
===
As impressive as Reba Meagher's claims for incompetence are, WA ALP manage to do better.
The state with a 1% sexual assault conviction rape managed to export a rapist to the UK, where he murdered a model. The UK police were not told of the intelligence WA Police had gathered on the person they had extradited.
The then 20 year old victim of the killer, who's DNA has been identified, showing him to be her attacker, bravely took the stand in the UK.
Revealed: the Butcher of Bega
ReplyDeleteBy Clair Weaver and Carmel Melouney
THEY call him the Butcher of Bega: a NSW doctor who has committed such monstrous acts that hundreds of terrified victims have remained silent for more than five years.
Dr Graeme Stephen Reeves is alleged to have routinely mutilated or sexually abused as many as 500 female patients while he was working as a gynaecologist and obstetrician at various hospitals across Sydney and the NSW south coast.
Despite the NSW Medical Board ruling he had psychiatric problems which "detrimentally affect his mental capacity to practice medicine'' more than a decade ago, he managed to continue treating women without detection in a devastating trail of botched operations and negligence.
Hundreds of former patients have come forward with harrowing - and graphic - evidence about Dr Reeves, who was struck off in 2004 for breaching practice restrictions.
As many as 500 emails from women were received by the private watchdog, Medical Error Action Group, last week telling of their humiliation and pain after parts of their genitals were removed or sewn up without their consent.
The outpouring came after a former patient of Dr Reeves, Carolyn Dewaegeneire, broke her five-year silence with two other women to give a public account of her ordeal on Channel Nine's Sunday program last weekend.
Despite the shocking revelations on the program, Dr Reeves is still not being investigated by the police, the NSW Medical Board or the Health Care Complaints Commission, over the latest allegations.
He is also free to re-apply to return to medical work at any time after serving a three-year ban.
The hospitals where Dr Reeves has practised include HornsbyKu-ring-gai, Sydney Adventistat Wahroonga, The Hills Privateat Baulkham Hills, Royal Hospital for Women and the Bega and Pambula hospitals.
Mrs Dewaegeneire was admitted to Pambula Hospital on August 2002 to have a minor lesion removed from her labia.
Before she lost consciousness to a general anaesthetic, she said Dr Reeves leaned over and whispered in her ear: "I'm going to take your clitoris, too''.
After the operation she discovered all her external genitalia had been cut off her body. It is alleged Dr Reeves later boasted of removing "all the fun bits'' - and said she wouldn't need them as her husband had died.
Lorraine Long, of the Medical Error Action Group, said she was inundated with emails from women complaining about Dr Reeves in the past week.
She plans to have the women submit their evidence to policeand pursue a class action against Dr Reeves for compensation.
"Women are coming forward in droves from Bega, Pambula, Westmead, Hornsby and The Hills Private hospitals,'' she said.
"We will have more power by acting together. (Health Minister) Reba Meagher has got to get to grips with this. How did he escape detection for so long?''
For years, women in Bega and Pambula have been too frightened and ashamed to talk about their injuries - or their partners didnot want them to go public, Ms Long said.
Dr Reeves was struck off for gross misconduct in 2004 for continuing to do obstetric work in breach of conditions imposed on him by the Medical Board in 1997 following the deaths of a woman and a baby under his care.
Another patient's life had also been endangered, the board found.
It is understood the woman, a mother of three with post-natal depression, died after being refused antibiotics by Dr Reeves, despite pleas from nursing staff.
He successfully escaped detection for two years by moving from Sydney - where he had been the subject of complaints by fellow medical staff at Hornsby Hospital - to the NSW south coast.
He lied his way into a job as a gynaecologist and obstetrician at Bega and Pambula, claiming he wanted a "lifestyle change''.
Neither his employer, the Greater Area Health Service (GSAHS), nor the NSW Medical Board made checks on his activities, whichwere restricted because of his previous record.
But, incredibly,Dr Reeves was given a red-carpet welcome and was regarded as a prestigious addition to the Bega Valley hospital services.
Announcing his employment, the then CEO of GSAHS, Dr Denise Robinson, told a local newspaper: "We are delighted that Dr Reeves has come to the area and we are very happy to see local women with access to this (gynaecological and obstetric) service in the Bega Valley once again.''
But women who had placed their trust in the new doctor were soon being allegedly betrayed in the most intimate of ways. The litany of complaints included losing a kidney, having genitals sewn up or cut up, inappropriate examinations, fondling and lewd comments.
Andrew Dix, registrar and chief executive officer of the NSW Medical Board, told The Sunday Telegraph the board had already handed out to Dr Reeves its most severe punishment: deregistration.
The board did not report him to the Director of Public Prosecutions for criminal negligence before 2004 because it did not have sufficient evidence and "there were in fact people who said that he was a competent gynaecologist'', he said.
But Mr Dix admitted if the board had known about all the allegations against him that have now surfaced "we would have treated it differently''.
He said Dr Reeves was not regarded as having a serious mental illness when he was disciplined by the board in 1997.
"There was no hard evidence of a major psychiatric illness,'' he said.
But NSW Medical Tribunal documents show the board ordered Dr Reeves to have psychiatric treatment for his "personality and relations problems and depression''.
By 2004, the board had noticed his "bare-faced lies'' and "deceptive conduct'', and subsequently struck him off for "gross professional misconduct of the most serious kind''.
NSW Police said they were not currently investigating any medical complaints against Dr Reeves. Mr Dix pledged that the NSW Medical Board would oppose any attempts by Dr Reeves to re-register. "One would say that, on the basis of the material available to us, we would be doing that quite vigorously.''
Improved measures since 2004 - like Internet access to the medical registry - would improve monitoring and prevent such situations being repeated, Mr Dix said.
He encouraged women with complaints to contact the board. Dr Reeves refused to comment on the allegations when The Sunday Telegraph visited him last week.
Australian victim helps nail killer
ReplyDeleteBy Charles Miranda in London
AN Australian university student was a surprise star witness who helped convict Mark Dixie after she travelled to London and recounted in harrowing detail how he had raped, stabbed and left her for dead.
The now 30-year-old woman, who the court ordered only be identified as Anne, moved to Perth when she was 15 with her family keen she get a better education.
The young student first studied English but within four years began studying at university for an undergraduate degree in economics.
In June 1998, the then 20-year-old went to a friend's house in the inner-city suburb of Leederville, which was quieter than her group house, to study alone for exams.
She was about to go to bed when she passed by the kitchen and saw a man wearing a balaclava climbing through the window.
She ran back to the study, but he followed her there and held a large knife towards her.
"Do you have any money?" he asked in an Australian accent.
She said: "No, please don't do anything." She told the court she was so scared and didn't know what to do.
He then ordered her to take off her pyjama top.
"He looked angry and I started screaming and kicking out and went to climb out a window," Anne said.
He dragged her around, threw her to the ground and began stabbing her back repeatedly and along the jaw.
Later, British police said the wounds were "substantially similar" to those he would inflict on an 18-year-old girl on the other side of the world seven years later.
Anne passed out but regain consciousness sometime later, found she was naked and had been sexually assaulted, and managed to call a friend on a mobile phone.
The intruder did not steal anything from the house except the cosmetics she had left on a table.
DNA evidence was taken, but it wasn't until British police contacted WA authorities that a match was made.
Meanwhile, Dixie had already tried to assault another woman. He was naked when he jumped at her on a beach. She told police she was sure he wanted to rape her before she escaped.
Scotland Yard detectives had implored a physically and mentally scarred Anne to make a trip to London and testify at the Old Bailey.
She agreed only to do it after they guaranteed she could give evidence from behind a heavy curtain and would not have to face Dixie.
Time and the trauma had eroded some of her memory, but her answers to questions from the prosecution and the defence, which at one stage attempted to discredit her evidence against Dixie by asking her if she had ever been a prostitute, were clear and concise.
Scotland Yard slams Australian cops
ReplyDeleteBy Charles Miranda in London
SCOTLAND Yard has launched an attack on Australian police for lack of co-operation in a murder case.
Detectives in Britain yesterday revealed British chef Mark Dixie, 36, who has been convicted of killing a model in London, was caught only by chance after Australian police failed to tell them of suspicions he was involved in assaults and sex incidents years earlier.
They slammed Australian police for showing complete indifference to the "homicidal maniac" and his alleged violence and sexual perversions, not even telling them he had been deported for drug and visa offences.
Yesterday Dixie was jailed for life for the rape and stabbing murder of 18-year-old part-time model Sally Anne Bowman at her south London home in 2005.
British police say he may have killed while living in various states of Australia, as well as Spain and Holland.
Dixie moved to Australia in 1993. He overstayed his visa and fathered two children to a girlfriend before calling himself Shane Turner and moving to Perth to work as a chef.
There was a warrant out for his arrest in New South Wales.
In 1997 he was sacked after holding a knife to a waiter's throat but got a new job at the Dunsborough Beach Lodge where he smoked cannabis, trawling the beaches and exposing himself to women during drug highs.
In June 1998 he raped and stabbed a 20-year-old university economics student. She survived and last week faced him in court in Britain.
He was deported on April 23, 1999, but Australian authorities never mentioned any of his offences or their suspicions to counterparts.
They only told Scotland Yard about him nine months after he was deported and only after being asked.