A year after Australia’s Health Care Complaints Commission imposed restrictions on Dr Teo, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal he is now operating regularly in China — including on high-profile VIPs — and at least eight other countries around the world.

Dr Teo has operated on 150 patients in China, Spain, Germany, India, Switzerland, Brazil, Peru, South Africa and Nepal since the HCCC restrictions effectively stopped him from operating in Australia.

In an interview from Beijing, Professor Ling Feng — Deputy Director of the China International Neuroscience Institute — said she was “not worried” about the restrictions imposed on Dr Teo a year ago for unsatisfactory conduct.

“I took a careful look into what happened over there (in Australia). I don’t think it should be imputed to Charlie’s neglect of care and passion for the patients,” Professor Ling said.

“It is just a different view of the indications for surgery. Similar cases occur across the world.

“Instead, I thank Australia for the restrictions on Charlie, which gave me the opportunity to work with him.”

In the past year, patients have travelled from Australia — including from NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia — Romania, Britain, Saudi Arabia, France, Indonesia, and Singapore to have Dr Teo operate on them.

Of those surgeries, Dr Teo’s logbook documents one death, one “poor” outcome, three “fair outcomes”, 20 “good outcomes”, and 145 cases have been documented as “excellent”.

In China last month, Dr Teo was chosen over the country’s “highly capable and skilled Chinese surgeons” to perform a high-risk procedure on a VIP, whose name can’t be revealed, and had two high-risk surgical successes that made the local newspaper in Beijing.

Just last week, he operated in China on a little boy from Indonesia who “was rejected by virtually every surgeon and every doctor in the world who specialises in this particular tumour”, Dr Teo said.

Alvin Walter Chandra had a recurrent and huge craniopharyngioma — a benign tumour that “behaves in a malignant fashion”, Dr Teo explained.

Dr Teo prepared the family. “We call it ‘glooming’ the patients, exaggerating the poor outcomes so they are fully informed and go in eyes wide open,” he said.

“Previous radiotherapy and surgery is what made the case so high risk.

“I honestly thought he would do badly, definitely blind because he only had poor vision in one eye before the surgery.”

Dr Teo operated with Chinese neurosurgeon Professor Ge Chen, and the outcome was better than they expected.

“Post-op his vision is the same, and his paralysis is better. He will live a long and functional life,” Dr Teo said.

Alvin’s dad Effendi Putra Chandra told The Sunday Telegraph from China that his son’s “extremely difficult life-threatening operation” had been a success, and that by day four he had stopped vomiting and could keep down water.

“The doctors are very happy with his progress, and we really appreciate everything Dr Teo has done for our son,” he said.

“We are very happy. We are thanking God for all of it.”

Prof Ling told The Sunday Telegraph the surgeries Dr Teo had already performed in her country were proof he was an “excellent practising neurosurgeon”.

“A case of surgery in Wuzhi Mountain is such that Dr Teo accurately pinpointed a 2cm keyhole on the bone and completely removed a 7cm brain tumour,” the professor said.

“The operation was beautiful, and the patient could walk the next day.

“All of this impressed my team, and their reaction was: ‘What a Shock! Well worth learning!’.

“We need him to pass on his philosophy, skills and patient care to our young doctors and improve the overall strength of our team.

“He can do surgery not only for the local patients but also in Hainan Province and beyond, especially in some very difficult cases,” she said.

“Like … an elderly woman suffering from craniopharyngioma that left her blind in one eye. Her overall conditions were very poor and she was turned down by many other hospitals for operation.

“She came to our hospital for the last hope. With the strong co-operation of all disciplines in the hospital, Charlie completely removed the tumour with exquisite technology, very little bleeding, and creating favourable conditions for post-operative recovery.”

It’s been a tumultuous 12 months since the very public HCCC hearing that resulted in restrictions placed on Dr Teo’s licence because of two terrible surgery outcomes.

What started as a “sad” time of “semi-retirement” soon evolved into a busy year of performing dozens of the high-risk surgeries for which he had been criticised in Australia.

At 66 years of age, and with hospitals around the world calling him in for complicated surgeries that other doctors will not touch, Dr Teo — who some have said has a “God complex” — is certainly ready to face his own mortality.

“Self audit is absolutely necessary in our game, so if I feel like my results aren’t as good as I should be, if I’m getting complications that I never got before, then clearly I’m not as honed as I used to be,” he said.

“You can lose a bit of surgical courage, you don’t have as much testosterone, and that’s why they say ideally a surgeon reaches his peak around 45 to 55, so I think at 66 years of age you have to be very self-critical and, not self-doubt but self-assess, just to make sure you’re not beyond your years and your capability — and (if you are) you should retire.”

But the results he has been getting are “great”.

“I’ve been doing difficult cases overseas, such as brain stem gliomas, recurrent malignant gliomas, and the results have been very, very good.

“I guess that’s what I am well known for. I was lauded and seduced to work overseas for the very difficult tumours.”

He has audited his cases and the results are “better than they have ever been”.

In South Africa, Dr Teo recorded one result on the horrible end of the spectrum.

“It was not really an ‘operative’ death because he woke up very well after surgery. He had a post-operative complication and so I have to take blame for that,” he said.

“The family were still incredibly appreciative of the fact that we tried.

“He had a brain stem tumour that was going to kill him and everyone else had called inoperable, so it was like those that have been highlighted in the media where there was a very, very unfortunate outcome but nevertheless an outcome that is often appreciated by the family because they weren’t prepared to let their loved one go without trying everything, including high-risk surgery.”

Dr Teo said the family had been “incredibly nice”, sending him cards and saying “we don’t blame you for the outcome, we knew the risks and we know that you tried your best”.

The surgeon who sought out Dr Teo for the surgery said he first operated on the man’s brain stem tumour himself, but when things got “really bad” he told the family he was “out of his depth”.

“I told them the only person I know who could help is Charlie,” he said.

“Day one after the surgery the patient was going great, then day two it went bad and he deteriorated and ultimately was in a coma and died a month or two after,” said the doctor who asked to remain anonymous for fear of unwanted media attention.

“I have been in touch with the family and they are just glad Charlie tried, they love him. They understand it’s the condition that’s the problem, not the doctor.”

Travelling abroad for surgery places tremendous weight on families, and on Dr Teo.

He has watched 50 Australian families, already under intense stress, find the money and the will to get to him.

“When patients have to spend so much money to go overseas, not just (for) surgery but travel expenses and accommodation, then it puts another big layer of responsibility on me,” he said.

“If you have a bad outcome overseas, just imagine how bad that would be because you then have to transport the body back to Australia, or transport the patient who is infirmed or paralysed back to Australia.

“A lot of patients just can’t accept that, and those who do are taking a huge risk.”

Dr Teo said his preference would always be to operate in Australia, and it was “absolutely terrible” that people are dying in his home country — people who wanted to take a chance on him.

People who wanted to “take their last chance and know they did everything they could”.

Discussing the restrictions still riles him 12 months later.

“Let’s get it straight. I can still operate in Australia. I still have my full licence. I can be an independent surgeon,” he said.

“I don’t need supervision, but I do need someone to give me permission on two very difficult, high-risk surgeries: recurrent malignant gliomas and brain stem gliomas.

“Actually, they are so controversial, so high risk it would have been nice to have been endorsed by someone else.”

But once “the media and his colleagues” were “against him”, the hospital where he was working felt he was “too high risk” and refused to renew his privileges.

“So I said ‘I’ll just go to another hospital, and get privileges at another hospital’, but unfortunately every other hospital that does neurosurgery has neurosurgeons and the neurosurgeons have all circled the wagons to keep me out,” he said.

“So it’s the neurosurgeons and other doctors that have kept me from getting privileges at an Australian hospital.

“It’s not licensing, and it’s not APRA or the HCCC. It’s my colleagues.

“I have some very supportive colleagues who have tried to get me visiting rights to perform surgeries, but when they have tried the other neurosurgeons at their hospitals have banded together and stopped it from happening.”

One day, he hopes his very public fall from grace will make sense.

“All it would take is one sensible and brave person in one hospital somewhere in Australia to change the status quo,” he said.

“Just one person to sit back and go ‘OK he might be an arsehole, he might be into money, he might be a bit of a cowboy, he might be all the things the media have said he might be, but the fact is that patients, Australian patients, some need him and he does operations that other people don’t do. and most of those outcomes are good so what about we just drop the politics and allow him to operate in Australia?

“That’s all it would take … some common sense for the greater good, not for his sake but for the sake of patients.”

Cydonee Mardon is a former patient of Dr Teo.