Brisbane: Indian-born American surgeon Jayant Patel has been accused in court of performing useless and dangerous operations which prosecutors say resulted in the deaths of three patients.
Patel pleaded not guilty to three charges of manslaughter and one count of grievous bodily harm at Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday.
The charges relate to four patients he treated while working as director of surgery between 2003 and 2005 at a state-run hospital in Bundaberg in Queensland state.
Prosecutor Ross Martin said in one case Patel found a benign cyst.
However, rather than order a biopsy, Patel removed the man's bowel. The specimen later showed no sign of cancer and it was a "useless operation."
The trial Patel, 59, comes more than 25 years after questions were first raised about his competency, and five years after a government inquiry found he may have directly contributed to patient deaths due to an unacceptable level of care at the hospital.
Patel was originally charged with more than a dozen counts, but will only be tried on four: three counts of manslaughter and one count of grievous bodily harm.
The charges relate to four patients he treated while working as director of surgery between 2003 and 2005 at a state-run hospital in Bundaberg, a sugar industry town north of Brisbane in Queensland state.
Patel faces life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors say Patel repeatedly performed surgeries he'd been banned from undertaking in the United States, misdiagnosed patients and used sloppy, antiquated surgical techniques while working at Bundaberg Base Hospital.
Some of the accusations against him include unnecessarily removing a patient's bowel and allowing an elderly man to die of internal bleeding.
Patel has faced complaints about his competency since the early 1980s, when he practiced in the US.
In 1984, he was fined by New York health officials and placed on probation for three years for failing to examine patients before surgery.
He later worked at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Kaiser banned him from liver and pancreatic surgeries in 1998 after reviewing 79 complaints about Patel.
The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners later cited him for "gross or repeated acts of negligence."
Patel was hired at Bundaberg in 2003. Two years later he resigned and left for the US after accusations of questionable practices were raised against him in state parliament.
In July 2008, he was extradited to Brisbane from his home in Portland and has been living since in an undisclosed residential location funded by state taxpayers.
