Witness admits Dr “Death” Patel’s procedure value judgment not incompetence

MELBOURNE - An expert witness in Bundaberg Hospital surgeon Dr Jayant “Death” Patel’s case has denied claims that he unjustly criticized him for failing to insert a fluid monitoring line into a patient after Patel’s lawyer acquainted him with the fact that there were a number of perfectly reasonable explanations for him not having done so.

The witness, Dr John Allsop had claimed on Tuesday that it would be “bread and butter” for a competent surgeon to insert the line.

Patel’s lawyer Michael Byrne said Patel’s decision to send the patient, James Phillips, to intensive care without a central venous line was a value judgment not incompetence, The Courier-Mail reports.

In a hasty retraction from his previous stand, Allsop said: “As I said in one of my reports it is difficult to make equivocal judgment unless you are hovering over one’s shoulder.”

Patel is not charged with any criminal offence regarding his oesophagectomy on Grave but prosecutors led evidence about it because they claimed it should have been a warning to Patel, the paper said.

Byrne also asked Allsop about reports he had compiled for the Health Rights Commission in 2005, which did not contain some of the evidence Dr Allsop had given at the trial.llsop conceded that there were things he may not have fully considered in his original report. (ANI)