Bacchus Marsh hospital maternity unit again ‘stretched’, as doctor avoids suspension over baby death cluster

One of the doctors involved in a notorious baby death cluster is the only thing keeping the “stretched” Bacchus Marsh Hospital maternity unit “safe”, a tribunal has heard.

One of the doctors involved in the notorious Bacchus Marsh Hospital baby death cluster has avoided being suspended because doing so would gut the “already understaffed, serious stretched” maternity service there.

Dr Jocelyn Benedicto was a junior doctor under the supervision of the notorious former director of obstetrics, Dr Surinder Parhar, early in her career after moving to Australia from the Philippines.

She is now a full time senior resident at the hospital and admitted late last year to a string of 16 allegations of professional misconduct stemming from her role in the treatment of eight patients between 2008 and 2015.

Bacchus Marsh Hospital maternity unit was the site of a baby death cluster.

On Wednesday, she was told she would not be suspended from working as a doctor, after a three-member panel of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal said doing so would remove the “backbone” of the gutted maternity service at the hospital.

In an extraordinary development, the tribunal was told the maternity service would become “unsafe” if Dr Benedicto had been suspended, and might have had to close.

If the Bacchus Marsh maternity unit closed, it would have had knock-on effects at hospitals in the western suburbs, with mums and babies having to be moved to the strained maternity unit at the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital at Sunshine.

The tribunal panel was scathing of the hospital for not having any contingency plans in place for if it suspended Dr Benedicto.

“We regard it as a matter of concern that … the safety and continuity of the current maternity service at Bacchus Marsh Hospital depends … on a still relatively junior practitioner whose conduct is the subject of serious allegations of professional misconduct,” the tribunal panel said.

Dr Surinder Parhar, the former head of obstetrics at Bacchus Marsh Hospital, will never work as a doctor again. Picture: Mark Stewart

“We have refrained from imposing a suspension only because we do not want a decision of this tribunal to have a potentially catastrophic impact on the safety and continuity of the care of maternity patients at Bacchus Marsh Hospital, because of the inability of (management) to plan for or to cover any extended absence of Dr Benedicto.”

Despite her repeated failures as a young doctor, Dr Benedicto is now renowned as a competent and skilful medico.

Her colleagues described her as the “linchpin” and “backbone” of the hospital’s maternity unit, and as an “absolute rock”.

The tribunal panel said that had the hospital properly staffed and prepared for Dr Benedicto’s suspension, it would have suspended her for three months to send a message to other doctors that they will be punished for incompetent and unsafe work.

Dr Parhar has been banned from working as a doctor for life, while a second junior doctor, Dr Lorraine Lines, was previously disqualified for three months.