The great pretenders: Rise in complaints about fake doctors
A growing number of NSW medicos have been caught out lying about their expertise, exploiting vulnerable patients with sometimes fatal consequences.
NSW
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A growing number of medical and dental operators have been caught out for not being what they claimed to be, or giving treatment outside of their expertise, exploiting vulnerable patients with sometimes dangerous consequences.
In August, a 27-year-old woman posed as a trainee doctor at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital for eight months before it was discovered she was not registered and was removed from the post.
A spokeswoman for South Western Sydney Local Health District said it had completed its internal investigation, and recommendations had been implemented to further strengthen safeguards around the recruitment of staff.
The person involved is no longer employed by the District or NSW Health.
Investigations are now under way as to how and why someone could get away with that in our heavily regulated health system.
But she was not alone.
LI SHEN
Medsound Diagnosis Imaging in Hornsby looked professional enough but the woman who ran it, Li Shen, was not qualified to either perform ultrasounds or write reports to doctors.
In addition, the equipment, which was also used for transvaginal and transrectal scans, was not properly cleaned between patients.
On top of that, she was billing Medicare under another doctor’s provider number without his knowledge.
Li Shen practised for four years, between January 2017 and November 2020, before a patient complained to authorities and the Health Care Complaint Commission investigated,
However, patients had taken to social media long before the authorities acted.
“While ultrasounding my upper arms the radiographer told me I had lots of clots and clear DVT,” wrote one patient on December 11, 2017.
“She was saying how shocked she was that I was so young with so many dangerous clots. She asked for me to come back that afternoon as her colleague was bringing a stronger probe
“Not only was she chewing gum the entire time, and failed to explain anything clearly, and she scared me very much. I went to PRP nearby the same day and they found no evidence of any clots.”
When the HCCC investigated, it found Ms Shen, an overseas-trained doctor, had failed the Australian Medical Council (AMC) written exam on three occasions before reinventing herself as a fake radiographer.
She also provided reports to GPs without being a registered doctor and without specialty training, the HCCC found after an investigation.
“She has wilfully disregarded the health and wellbeing of her patients for her own financial gain,” the commission said.
Earlier this year Ms Shen was permanently barred by the HCCC from providing any health service in any capacity.
All of her patients were urged to have their scans redone, and to have tests for hepatitis B and C and HIV because of the lack of infection control at the clinic.
TITILAYO OYEDELE AND OLADELE ELUWOLE
Titilayo Oyedele arrived in Australia in November 2014 and secured employment as a technical officer and hospital scientist at NSW Health Pathology.
The HCCC conducted an investigation and ruled Ms Oyedele was responsible for two serious adverse events in patients by selecting and issuing incompatible blood for transfusions in 2018 and 2019.
Both patients recovered but it could have been fatal.
It found Ms Oyedele had falsified her employment history, claiming she had worked as a scientist in histology in Nigeria for three years.
In reality, she had worked in the United Kingdom and had been found guilty of medical misconduct and struck off the UK’s health register for the same reason — selecting and administering an incompatible blood transfusion for a patient, and for presenting false information about her employment history to gain employment.
In January 2021, the HCCC found that Ms Oyedele posed a risk to the health or safety of members of the public, and put in a permanent ban on her providing any health service.
Oladele Eluwole also arrived in Australia in November 2014, and held various positions in Queensland and NSW pathology services.
He was investigated by the HCCC and found to have falsified the same employment history as Ms Oyedele, claiming to have been employed as a biomedical scientist in Nigeria.
Mr Eluwole also had also faced regulatory proceedings in the UK before coming to Australia. The HCCC found he failed to provide a health service in a safe and ethical manner, provided a health service he was not qualified to provide, and engaged in misinformation and misrepresentation in relation to services he provided.
Mr Eluwole was also permanently barred from providing any health service.
LACHLAN HINDS
He called himself Dr Lachlan Hinds Ph. D, D.D, M.Ms, B.Ms, D.Hom, D. R. T and claimed to be an emotional intelligence expert, cranio-sacral therapist and dream therapist with more than 20 years’ experience.
Mr Hinds was just a homoeopath who treated patients suffering from mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD and self-harm.
Mr Hinds billed a vulnerable woman with mental health problems $23,000 for counselling treatments. The HCCC investigation found he had “no formal qualifications, training, or education in counselling, psychology or mental health”.
The HCCC found that as the patient’s condition deteriorated, Mr Hinds began daily visits — and charging $240 — and that he “wilfully took advantage of and financially exploited” the 43-year-old woman’s vulnerability for his own personal gain.
Mr Hind’s qualifications were obtained from the International Metaphysical Ministry and the University of Metaphysics, which the HCCC found were not recognised or accredited educational facilities.
The Commission banned him from using the title Dr, and stated it was “concerned that vulnerable members of the public suffering from complex medical and mental health conditions may make detrimental health care decisions based on Mr Hinds’ advice.”
DR ATEF SALLAM
Dr Atef Sallam, from Taree, was a qualified general practitioner but he had no training in administering steroid injections into the necks and spines of 15 patients.
The procedure normally requires radiological imaging like ultrasound for guidance to ensure safety but Dr Sallam did not use any form of imaging, which meant the procedure was “fraught with danger” and had lethal consequences for one woman.
In 2018, Dr Sallam administered a series of injections of a corticosteroid into a 38-year-old woman’s spine in his Taree surgery. After the third injection, she said she could not breathe and was rushed to Manning Base Hospital, where she died four days later. She left behind four children.
Three years earlier Dr Sallam had been banned by the Medical Council of NSW from possessing and prescribing fentanyl, oxycodone, alprazolam, anabolic steroids and other drugs of addiction.
The HCCC began proceedings to have him struck off in 2018, but he was not suspended until August 2018 — after the death of the woman, known only as Patient A.
A separate patient was also given similar injections to the spine, which caused severe ongoing pain.
In August this year, the HCCC found Dr Sallam “did not have the requisite skills or training to perform the injections” on his patients, and because he did not use radiological imaging while injecting “his conduct was fraught with danger when injecting his patients in the cervical area, including the neck area”.
The HCCC took Dr Sallam to the Civil and Administrative Tribunal, where it found that the respondent’s treatment of his patients was incompetent. He was disqualified from being registered in the health profession, with a non-review period of five years.
DAVID KIRBY
Dr David Kirby is a dentist at the Hitek Family Dental Care in Orange, but for years he has treated patients who have various forms of cancer with cansema, a widely discredited flesh corroding substance linked to a number of preventable deaths and deformities.
Between 2009 and 2015, Dr Kirby treated 12 patients with cansema, which is illegal but sold online. He also recommended cansema to a patient with kidney problems, used needles to puncture the skin of one patient, and told another a non-cancerous cyst on her neck was cancer.
One of his patients, known as “Patient B”, suffered necrosis after they developed a chemical burn in 2012.
Dr Kirby was banned by the health regulator from applying cansema, also known as black salve and red salve, in 2016.
He took legal action against the HCCC and the Dental Council of NSW, and has since challenged the conditions imposed on his registration six times in various courts, including the High Court, which knocked back his claim last December.
The HCCC now has permanently banned him from “applying or administering black salve, red salve, cansema or cansema-like substances to any person, whether at his dental practice premises or elsewhere”.
EDWARD ALONSO VALENCIA OSPINA
In September the HCCC issued a public warning about dental treatment and services offered by Edward Alonso Valencia Ospina at his residential premises in Newtown NSW because they found he was not a registered dental practitioner or a registered dental hygienist.
“He has never held registration as a health professional of any description in Australia. It is not known if Mr Ospina has any qualifications in dentistry,” it said.
JOHN ROBERT COOK
Dressed in a bogus paramedic’s uniform, John Robert Cook also drives a Nissan Patrol with the NSW Ambulance insignia on the side — but he has never worked for the NSW Ambulance Service and is not a registered paramedic.
The HCCC issued a public warning last month after being alerted to Mr Cook’s activities in and around Queanbeyan for the past three years.
“Mr Cook has been seen wearing a bogus uniform designed to deceive the public that he is an NSW Ambulance Officer,” the public warning states
“While wearing the uniform he has also been seen driving a mock ambulance, namely a Nissan Patrol motor vehicle bearing the words ‘Paramedic’, ‘Medical Response Unit’, and ‘Ambulance’. The vehicle also carries the insignias of ‘NSW Ambulance’.
“The vehicle is privately registered to Mr Cook. Mr Cook has been identified wearing the bogus uniform while standing next to his mock ambulance at the scene of a road traffic crash.”
Mr Cook is not and never has been a registered paramedic or employee of the NSW Ambulance Service.
Pending further investigations, the HCCC has issued an interim warning in August this year, that he must not provide any health services, paid or voluntary, to any member of the public.
61 PROHIBITION ORDERS SINCE 2020
Lorraine Long heads up the Medical Error Action Group and has long questioned the vetting process of health practitioners.
There have been 61 prohibition orders slapped on health practitioners since 2020 and dozens of public warnings.
“No one is checking them, you’ve got great pretenders being let loose in the system,” Ms Long said.
“Who is monitoring them and who is checking up on the registration of all practitioners? No one really.
“I find a massive failure in this, anyone who works for NSW Health is supposed to be vetted.”
She said the watchdog relied on the public to complain.
According to the HCCC annual report, 7852 complaints were made in 2019-20, which was a 7.6 per cent increase compared to 2018-19. Complaints have risen 123.4 per cent over the past decade, the report said. Of the 7852 complaints, 393 investigations were commenced and 501 investigations finalised.
“I’ve got a file of letters of knock-backs, I cannot believe the amount of cases they dismiss,” Ms Long said.
“A number of complaints that I have considered serious I have reported to the coroner.”
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