St Vincent’s chemo scandal: ’Soon it will be 31 deaths’

KEN Dugdale can’t speak any more because of his cancer — but he wants his anger over the St Vincent’s Hospital chemotherapy cover-up to be heard.

Cancer sufferer Ken Dugdale with his wife Natalie Dugdale in Port Macquarie

• St Vincent’s covered up chemo scandal, says damning report

KEN Dugdale can’t speak any more because of his cancer — but he wants his anger over the St Vincent’s Hospital chemotherapy cover-up to be heard.

He was one of 78 patients given an incorrect dose of chemotherapy. Less than a year after having the chemo his cancer came back.

The 66-year-old’s voice box had to be removed and he now eats through a tube.

The cancer came back once again in June last year.

His wife Natalie last night said they were horrified to finally learn of the report’s findings.

“To find out the degree of this … I’m just … words can’t even describe it,” she said. “I think it’s alarming — 78 people received this treatment and 30 have died.”

Mrs Dugdale said she regularly kept in contact with other families who were also incorrectly underdosed by oncologist Dr John Grygiel.

What the report into St Vincent’s Hospital revealed.

One man had only just been told his cancer had come back — and this time it was terminal.

“This couple has only just been told today,” she said. “Soon the figure is going to become 31.”

The pair were only told Ken was wrongly dosed two months ago — two years after the treatment.

She said they had to push to get an answer after seeing a report in the media.

St Vincent’s Hospital staff raised concerns about his chemotherapy doses from “at least 2005” but accepted his explanations about the practice.

Dr Grygiel was not available, she said, and another doctor gave them the devastating news.

“We were told he was getting a low dose at the time but we didn’t know he was being underdosed,” Natalie said. “We actually asked for him to have stronger chemo because my father has had the same cancer so we know how aggressive it is.

“So we wanted more but they said ‘no, this is having the best result without having all the side effects’. Ken trusted the doctors and thought they knew best.”

She was shocked at the lack of action from the hospital detailed in the report and for how long it went on.

“It’s his (Dr Gygiel’s) responsibility but they all knew about it,” she said.

Mr Dugdale, a father of two, ran a motor dealership at Nambucca Heads for 33 years before his diagnosis.

“He had to close his business and our life has changed,” Natalie said. “Ken can’t go out to dinner with friends, he can’t socialise, he can’t eat or talk — he has no quality of life.”

Breast cancer survivor Janine Braithwaite and her sister, Adele Webb, who died of colon cancer, were both treated by Dr Grygiel in Orange. She said it was extremely concerning the interim report said concerns about the oncologist’s underdosing of head and neck cancers went back to at least 2005. “I’m gobsmacked,” she said. “It’s very concerning.”

Originally published as St Vincent’s chemo scandal: ’Soon it will be 31 deaths’