Top brain surgeon claims Sydney hospital refuses to let him operate on dying children
One of the nation's top neurosurgeons has revealed he has been denied the chance to operate on an 18-month-old child who is dying from a brain tumour amid allegations of extreme bullying in the industry.
Dr Charlie Teo welcomed a Senate inquiry into the profession, which he says revolves around bullying and harassment so severe that it caused one of his colleagues to committed suicide.
“It’s more extreme than you’ve been led to believe,” he said.
“Without being hyperbolic, it’s worse than you can imagine. It’s Machiavellian," he said in a television interview on Tuesday.
The brain surgeon also made explosive claims about the Sydney Children’s Hospital, saying they have refused to let him operate on a dying toddler.
“I have a child who’s dying from a brain tumour. It’s a benign tumour. It doesn’t respond to chemo and radiotherapy typically. It responds very well to surgery,” he told Fairfax.“I’ve taken many of these tumours out before with some good and bad results but mostly good results. I’m willing to give it a shot.
Dr Teo accused Sydney Children's Hospital of being territorial and ignoring reason because its own doctors had declared the tumour "inoperable", opting for chemotherapy and now "putting pressure on me not to operate on that child".
He said it should be up to the parents to decide whether or not their child undergoes surgery.
“But other doctors and other administrators – they don’t have the right to dictate the plight of their child.”
Dr Teo is known to operate on patients who have been considered inoperable by other neurosurgeons.
His beliefs have sparked controversy among his peers with some concerned that he is offering ‘false hope’ to patients.
“While there’s quality of life, there’s hope. If people aren’t willing to die I will certainly not condemn them to a death sentence. People I’ve operated on that really should have died within six months, a lot of them are still alive and a lot survived two, three, four years,” he said.
He said the children’s hospital has not referred a patient on to him for 17 years.
A spokeswoman for the Sydney Children’s Hospital told news.com.au that doctors always provide parents with "options and subsequent implications".
“Most children with complex conditions have a team of highly specialised experts involved in their care with one of those doctors identified as the principal clinician summarising the options,” she said.
Dr Teo is awaiting the findings of the Senate inquiry into bullying and harassment among Australia's surgeons following several revelations of bastardisation and sexual harassment.
The findings from the inquiry will be released in June.
News break – February 18
