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SYDNEY - Red-faced Queensland health authorities are poised to sack one of their doctors after it was revealed she was not medically qualified.
The "doctor" remains suspended from Cairns Base Hospital after it was discovered she used a public health qualification from a Shanghai college to pass herself off as a clinically trained junior doctor in her final year of training.
The Australian newspaper reported she was paid more than A$1200 ($1380) a week as a doctor intern and student observer, watching and dealing with patients over several months, until March.
The woman could not demonstrate knowledge of medical or clinical care, sources said.
Queensland health officials admitted the woman's credentials and background were not checked by hospital or regulatory managers before she was employed amid a staff shortage.
Meanwhile, another person from the same intake of foreign workers had already been sacked for failing to properly understand English.
That employee was believed to have had clinical training, but could not communicate in English to an acceptable standard.
The two worked for several months. They wore stethoscopes, conducted physical examinations and were held out to patients as doctors.
A Queensland health spokesman insisted the bungle hadn't put lives in danger.
But a government source told The Australian it was an alarming state of affairs.
"These characters were not let loose to do brain surgery, but they were medically examining people even though at least one had no medical training," the source said.
"The slippage of standards and the failure of checks and balances that allowed this to happen so soon after a major public inquiry into the health system is worrying. It amounts to a neglect of medical administrative duties and it has directly impacted on patients."
The Queensland government promised a A$9.7 billion funding boost and a new era of openness and transparency in the aftermath of the public inquiries arising from the damage wreaked by Indian- and United States-trained surgeon Dr Jayant Patel.
Dr Patel was barred in the US from performing surgery, but neither the Medical Board nor Queensland Health checked his background before he became Bundaberg Hospital's director of surgery.
Dr Patel is to be extradited from his US home in Portland, Oregon, to Queensland to face multiple charges of manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and fraud arising from his two years at Bundaberg Hospital.
- NZPA
