This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie, and our guest this week is the one and only

Headley Thomas. He's back with us to talk about his latest podcast, which comes from his first

book, Sick to Death. It's the result of his investigations into the Queensland Health

System in the early 2000s for the Courier Mail newspaper. Headley was writing in real

time about the frightening state of affairs,

including the many botched surgeries taking place in Bundaberg under Dr Jayant Patel.

Joins us to talk about it.

This is Australian True Crime.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created,

the Wurundri Woiwurang people of the Kulin Nation.

And a warning.

This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

What we learned is that if you are a doctor who is so bad that you're hurting or potentially

killing patients with your appalling surgical technique, the effort that an investigative

authority needs to take to prove that is quite large and costly.

So he goes to Bundaberg Hospital, Jayant Patel. That's where he ends up and they are thrilled, thrilled, beyond thrilled to have him because he presents as a very experienced,

very well-trained surgeon. He's come from two American hospitals and as we mentioned, he's brought

glowing references with him.

However, by the time he gets to Bundaberg, for reasons that he doesn't really disclose,

doesn't talk about, he hasn't actually performed surgery in a couple of years at all.

And he walks in there and he's just charging around like a bull in a china shop,

organizing surgeries.

...