Queensland considers how to improve checks on foreign doctors

The Queensland government will hold a royal commission into the issues arising from the appointment of a surgeon to a senior hospital post who had a history of “gross negligence” in the United States. In 2003 Dr Jayant Patel, who was trained in India, was appointed to the post of director of surgery at Bundaberg Base Hospital, Bundaberg, in central Queensland, at a salary of $A200 000 (£82 000; $160 000). Queensland's chief health officer, Dr Gerry FitzGerald, has confirmed that over the next two years at least 14 of Patel's several hundred patients experienced major complications. Although Dr FitzGerald confirmed that three of the patients …