Trained nurses hid their patients from the Director of Surgery - to keep them alive

Healthcare Scandal Investigations · Oct 26, 2026 · 20m

Trained nurses hid their patients from the Director of Surgery - to keep them alive

Awe at institutional failure meets dread: trained nurses at a Queensland hospital routinely moved patients into side rooms, drew curtains and hid charts to keep them out of a surgeon’s reach - a pattern recorded in formal inquiries, not rumor. How did one man with decades of documented disciplinary history come to lead surgery at Bundaberg Base Hospital, and how many lives were lost before the system stopped him?

In this episode, we trace the career and consequences of Jayant Mukundray Patel from his medical…