Editorial: Queensland Health has a lot to answer for

It’s one of the most heartbreaking stories - a widow who claims her husband was failed by his doctor, and now it’s too late. And it’s a story that demonstrates the enormity of the case that Queensland Health now has to answer, writes the editor.

The more we know about the appalling dysfunction inside Queensland Health in the city of Mackay, the worse it gets.

Today, The Sunday Mail can reveal perhaps one of the most heartbreaking stories following what was ultimately a state government decision to employ urologist Daryl Stephens. This story demonstrates graphically the enormity of the case that QH now has to answer.

Dr Stephens was the medical professional that Mackay man David Lang was referred to for testing when a pathology report showed worrying signs of cancer.

However, Dr Stephens did not order a biopsy. Mr Lang’s wife Kate Drake says the urologist told her husband he did not have cancer – only a small lesion on his bladder.

Dr Daryl Stephens.

David Lang cancelled an appointment with a private specialist in Sydney, as he believed he was cancer-free, and went travelling with wife.

David Lang, 74, but still fit enough to live an adventurous life, did have cancer.

He subsequently developed leukaemia – his wife says as a result of the chemotherapy she believes he would not have needed had his cancer been picked up early enough – and it killed him.

When the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency reviewed the matter, it agreed Dr Stephens had erred.

The AHPRA penalty for Dr Stephens was a four-hour course on how to improve his skills in detecting bladder cancer.

The agony of Ms Drake, who lay with her husband in his hospital bed as he was dying, is confronting.

David Lang and Kate Drake.

Kate Drake cared for her husband until the end.

This woman, married for 20 years to David Lang, and his friend for a decade beyond that, has to contend on a daily basis with the knowledge that her husband could be alive were it not for the incompetence of what our political leaders often call our world-class health system.

She also had to live with the knowledge that the only consequence for a doctor who did not properly assess her husband was a four-hour training course.

The couple who put their faith in this doctor had no idea about his past work record.

QH had to have known that Dr Stephens was found to have displayed incompetence at the most serious level when caring for a cancer patient years before he started dealing with Mr Lang.

Kate Drake believes her husband would still be alive if it wasn’t for Dr Stephens missing the cancer. Picture: Patrick Woods

The department did know a key reason Dr Stephens was allowed to practise in Mackay was because, despite an incompetence finding against him, there was a lack of specialists in the district.

The department should now have concluded that this doctor, who was accused of leaving a patient with a mutilated penis after 2019 surgery, who more recently was alleged to have been blowing his nose on a surgery curtain mid-operation and turning up to work with stains on his clothes after sleeping in his car, was someone who simply should not be employed by the department.

This truth of this sorry story came to light because The Sunday Mail began investigating.

Funding constraints and mounting pressures on health systems are occurring in developed countries across the globe. But that is no excuse for what is occurring here. What is occurring here is a bureaucracy failing in its basic administrative responsibilities.

The pain of that failure is demonstrated in the face of Kate Drake.