BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — An Australian prosecutor has ordered new trials for a former Oregon surgeon accused of the manslaughter of three patients.
Last week, Australia's highest court threw out a conviction against Jayant Patel and said he should be tried again on three counts of manslaughter and one count of grievous bodily harm related to his work as chief surgeon at a Queensland state hospital between 2003 and 2005.
Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions Tony Moynihan said Thursday that he would try Patel separately on each of the four charges. The four trials will likely take years to complete.
Patel was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2010 after being convicted of the charges. He was released on bail Friday after the High Court ruled there had been a miscarriage of justice.
Patel graduated from medical school in Jamnangar, India, in 1976 and entered a residency program in New York state two years later.
Patel's competency was first questioned in the early 1980s, when he practiced in the United States. In 1984, New York health officials fined Patel and placed him on probation for three years for failing to examine patients before surgery.
He later worked at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Portland, Oregon, which banned him from liver and pancreatic surgeries in 1998 after reviewing 79 complaints about him. The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners later cited him for "gross or repeated acts of negligence."
