‘Quite alarming’: Surgeon performed revision operation on Al Muderis patient

A doctor who performed corrective surgery on a former patient of Dr Munjed Al Muderis was subsequently the subject of an anonymous complaint to the healthcare watchdog for operating during COVID restrictions.

But the complaint was quickly dismissed, and instead the attention of the health commissioner was drawn to the original operation performed by Al Muderis.

Dr Munjed Al Muderis and his barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC (left), and partner Claudia Roberts.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

The incident emerged in an exchange between the barrister representing Al Muderis in his defamation action against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, and a witness for the media organisations in the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday.

Sue Chrysanthou, SC, asked orthopaedic surgeon Andrew Ellis whether he had ever made a complaint about Al Muderis and he affirmed that he had correspondence with the Health Care Complaints Commissioner.

Chrysanthou asked: “Was this the COVID one?”

Ellis: “How do you know about that?”

Ellis then volunteered that, after he was called to perform remedial surgery on a patient, he was told two complaints had been filed against him for operating during COVID – one with the Health Care Complaints Commissioner and the other with the NSW Department of Health.

“I don’t know if [the complainant] was Dr Al Muderis,” Ellis said. “It was anonymous.”

The Health Department determined within a day that the surgery had been legitimate and the HCCC came to the same conclusion after a month. Ellis then filed a complaint against Al Muderis about the sequence of events that prompted him to perform the remedial surgery in the first place.

He was concerned about the indications for the original surgery performed by Al Muderis, the scale and scope of that surgery, its failure and the need for revision surgery.

“I wrote saying, ‘This case illustrates matters that are worthy of complaint, not about me but about the professor,’ ” Ellis said.

“The facts of the case were quite alarming.”

But the complaint was not acted upon.

Al Muderis claims the news reports conveyed a variety of defamatory meanings, including that he negligently performed osseointegration surgery, failed to provide adequate after care and used high pressure sales tactics. Osseointegration surgery involves fitting a prosthetic leg directly onto the bone of an amputated leg.

The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes are relying on a range of defences including truth, fair comment and public opinion.

Ellis said that he also had concerns about the general approvals process in the Australian Defence Force for patients sent for surgery. The patient – one of several of Al Muderis’ patients who later consulted Ellis – was a serving member of the military and was under the impression that she would be back at work six months after her original operation.

“This was quite an extraordinary operation … how could approval occur without a second opinion and senior assessment of the need for surgery?”

Ellis was later contacted by The Age and asked whether he had a list of patients whom Al Muderis had treated at Macquarie University Hospital. He said there was no such list and declined to provide his patients’ details, he told the court.

Chrysanthou: “You weren’t asked about [Al Muderis’] happy patients?”

Ellis: “I don’t see his happy patients. They live in happiness.”

The trial continues.

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