Surgeon Roland von Marburg banned from practising after years of complaints

After 15 years of complaints from patients — including one who was left deaf after a botched surgery — a dodgy drug-addicted doctor dubbed “Dr Fail” has finally been banned from operating.

Roland von Marburg has been banned from practising. Picture: Tony Gough

A shonky surgeon dubbed “Dr Fail” has finally been banned from practising due to serious misconduct.

Roland von Marburg was exposed by the Sunday Herald Sun four years ago for his dodgy practices while operating on patients in the Albury-Wodonga area.

But despite 15 years of complaints from patients — many of whom were Victorians — he had been allowed to keep operating.

A tribunal has now found the public must be protected from him.

In one botched ear surgery, he made a father deaf.

A young child also had her ear unnecessarily operated on three times when there was no chance it would improve her condition.

Rolf Kaiser was among the victims who suffered after botched surgery.

Other patients reported misdiagnoses and suffering life-changing symptoms following surgery including balance issues and permanent face paralysis.

Von Marburg denied most of the complaints against him.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has taken his medical licence from him, but said it was “gravely concerned” should he apply to re-register after the eight-year ban.

The decision comes after a two-week hearing last month, which heard the ear, nose and throat specialist:

UNDERTOOK surgery when it was not required;

HAD a painkiller drug addiction, which he self-prescribed;

DOCTORED patient records to cover his tracks;

CREATED false reports for tests that he never completed;

FAILED to keep patient records between 2012 and 2014; and,

MADE false Medicare claims for procedures not performed.

The tribunal found von Marburg engaged in 18 proven instances of “clinical incompetence”.

“The practitioner’s misconduct is not confined to merely one aspect of his practice,” it said.

It called his medical malpractice, dishonesty and deception “egregious conduct”.

Cameron Ewert suffered two horrific weeks of pain.

A nerve in Robert Kramer’s face was severed.

The cowboy doctor’s lawyer had argued the protection orders — requested by the Health Care Complaints Commission — were not necessary as von Marburg ceased practising in October 2017, and had no intention of resuming his duties.

In 2015, a special investigation by the Sunday Herald Sun revealed von Marburg had been able to continue practising despite many accusations of inappropriate, unnecessary and substandard operations.

At the time he vehemently defended his practice and rejected patients’ claims as “a series of false allegations”, “scandalous lies” and “an attempt at character assassination”.

He did not give evidence at last month’s hearing; and could not be contacted for comment yesterday.

Von Marburg was registered as a medical practitioner after graduating in 1988 from Monash University with Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees.

Ten years later he became an ear, nose and throat surgeon when he qualified as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

Margaret Brodie was another victim.

A painkiller addiction led to his medical registration being restricted in 2008. The NSW Medical Board suspended him for four weeks and prohibited him from prescribing, possessing, supplying or administering any drug of addiction on his return.

He was also required to undergo random urine testing, and have a psychiatric review every six months.

He failed to complete a requirement of him to attend drug counselling.

And from April 2012 to December 2016, he prescribed codeine and sleeping tablet temazepam to patients he had a special relationship with — but conceded most of it was for his own use. In that period, he prescribed 8940 codeine tablets and 2925 temazepam tablets.

He was also caught sending letters to his patients’ GPs many times, saying their recovery had been “unremarkable”, when he had not even spoken to them.

In one case, he made no mention a recovering patient had spent a night in intensive care suffering from hypoxaemia and hypertension following surgery.

VICTIMS RELIEVED, BUT WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?

Shane Newton says he missed the prime of his kids’ lives after botched surgery left him deaf in one ear.

He struggles to hear them talk and says he “wouldn’t be in this situation” if action had been taken on the man responsible decades ago.

It’s a story all too familiar to the many victims of Roland von Marburg — an ear, nose and throat doctor who was banned from practising for eight years this week.

But many say it’s too little too late after his spate of bungled surgeries left lives in ruins for more than 20 years in Albury Wodonga.

It’s a bittersweet result for Mr Newton, who was left in von Marburg’s care in 2009 to repair a hole in his ear.

“We’re glad he’s been banned. But it’s taken so long,” the 51-year-old told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“That’s the disappointing part — we just wish the medical board had been more responsive earlier on.

Victim Shane Newton with his son Tom and wife Robyn at their Everton home.

“If they had, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Robert Kramer saw von Marburg for a routine ear procedure and cleaning in 2015.

The dodgy doctor told him, “You will be in and out in no time”, as he was wheeled off to surgery.

But a new reality awaited him, waking to a severed facial nerve and paralysis of half his face — drooped from “complications”.

Four years on, the 74-year-old won’t speak to strangers on the phone and avoids going out for dinner.

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“I was devastated to see this man go in a person and come out looking like he was on death’s door,” wife Jill said.

“It could have been stopped years ago — but why they didn’t ban him, I don’t know.”

“Finally” was the first word uttered by Julie Newell when she heard the news yesterday.

Her son Cade, then 23, was one of von Marburg’s’ earliest victims in the early 2000s — his operation scheduled to be a standard procedure to stop snoring.

“How many thousand more has he disfigured?” Mrs Newell said. “He’s been operating forever. I’m jubilant now, (but) how has this been allowed to happen for so long?”