Adjudication No. 1352 (adjudicated March 2007) [2007] APC 9

Adjudication No. 1352 (adjudicated March 2007)

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint by the Medical Board of Queensland over an editorial in the Gold Coast Bulletin of 15 February 2007 relating to the Board's attempts to have Dr Jayant Patel deregistered. A warrant for Dr Patel, who worked at Bundaberg Base Hospital for two years from 2003, was issued last November on counts of manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and fraud over his treatment of eight patients at Bundaberg Base Hospital.

The Board objects to statements in the editorial that the Board "wants Patel's medical negligence hearing held in secret".

The Board points out that the request for a closed hearing was made by the Queensland Attorney-General for the Director of Public Prosecutions; that, while it said it would not oppose the DPP's motion, the Board requested that the application should be made public; and that it also retained the option, on receipt of the DPP's submission in the following two weeks, to oppose the DPP's request for a non-publication order.

The Press Council notes that while the Gold Coast Bulletin reported correctly on the Board's case against Dr Patel before the Health Practitioners Tribunal on 13 February in an article the next day, Push for Dr Death secrecy, and later sought to clarify the situation in an editorial Secrecy claim on 21 February. But the Board is correct in its claims of errors of fact in the newspaper's 15 February editorial More secrecy.