‘He treated me with absolute contempt,’ Al Muderis patient says

“Dr Al Muderis never touched me,” the witness said, her voice rising.

“He never examined me. I told them I was in excruciating pain, could they get me to a hospital. The only thing they were interested in, in that meeting, was whether I was a private patient.”

Orthopaedic surgeon Al Muderis, flanked by his barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, is suing for defamation.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Sharon Jones-Baldwin was giving evidence against orthopaedic surgeon Munjed Al Muderis in the defamation case he has brought against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, which he claims made defamatory allegations including that he negligently performed surgery and provided inadequate after-care.

Nine, which owns the media outlets, is relying on a range of defences, including truth, honest opinion and public interest.

Jones-Baldwin told the Federal Court in Sydney that she went to see Al Muderis in 2021 while suffering severe pain in her back. The waiting room was “manic”, she said in her affidavit. About 20 patients were packed into the waiting room. One couple was making a noisy complaint about another doctor.

She was eventually ushered into a waiting room where she was informed by two doctors that her X-rays showed she had a broken hip. Al Muderis entered the room briefly, but barely spoke, she said, and never physically examined her. She was admitted to hospital that day.

“I wanted him to talk to me,” Jones-Baldwin said. “I wanted to know what was involved, I wanted to explain to him the problems with the administration of my medication, I wanted to tell him about my back. He didn’t explain anything to me. He treated me with absolute contempt.”

But Jones-Baldwin was not operated on until days later, and she had to plead with the nurses for pain medication, she told the court.

Al Muderis appeared once, with about 10 trainees in tow, uttering the words “Jones-Baldwin, hip replacement”, before leaving the room, she said in her affidavit.

“I kept telling myself, ‘It’s going to be OK,’ ” Jones-Baldwin told the court. “Dr Al Muderis is famous. At some point somebody is going to come here and explain what’s going to happen to me. But they never did. I went into that theatre and I was scared out of my brain.”

After the surgery, the doctor who came to give her a new cannula was drunk, she said. “I could smell alcohol on him from the door … and it wasn’t even lunch time,” she said in her affidavit.

On his first attempt to insert the cannula, he missed and scratched her arm, she said. On his second attempt, he put it in the crook of her arm so she could not bend it.

She did not see Al Muderis again until the day of her discharge. He told her the operation was a success. “The problem is you and your veins,” he allegedly said. “Don’t overdo it.”

Jones-Baldwin, whose veins have been prone to collapse since she was treated for leukemia in 2018, did not speak to the media before the stories about Al Muderis were aired, but when she saw the program on 60 Minutes, she cried.

Under cross-examination on Thursday afternoon, it was put to her that she was a lying fantasist.

“I’m here to tell the truth,” she said, adding that she was suffering from a broken shoulder, but should have been having surgery by now, but delayed that to give evidence. “I’m in so much pain, but I’m here because I think it’s so important to tell the truth about Dr Al Muderis.”

Lisa Schaeffer flew out from the United States to give evidence against Al Muderis.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Earlier in the day, another patient denied under cross-examination that she had been poisoned against Al Muderis by his former business partner.

Al Muderis successfully operated on Lisa Schaeffer, who flew to Australia from Georgia in the United States for the procedure known as osseointegration, which involved fitting a prosthetic leg directly onto the bone of her amputated leg.

She agreed the operation had changed her life, but she later filed a complaint about Al Muderis. She said the surgeon he did not promptly respond to her concerns and once set up a makeshift surgery in a hotel room to attend to patients while at a conference.

Sue Chrysanthou, SC, appearing for Al Muderis, put it to Schaeffer that she had been persuaded to put in the complaint by the surgeon’s US representative, Fred Hernandez, after the pair fell out.

“After having dinner with Mr Hernandez and exchanging emails with him, you all of a sudden decided to share your dirty laundry, and you prepared this disgusting document that was full of lies?” Chrysanthou asked.

“No,” Schaeffer replied.

“And [Al Muderis] in fact treated you as a surgeon and a doctor well above and beyond your expectations in a positive way?” Chrysanthou probed.

“At the onset, but not as time went on,” Schaeffer said.

The trial continues.

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