A rogue surgeon performed unnecessary, unauthorized and, in some cases, botched surgery on 152 Australian women in a suspected money-making scheme, Perth Now reported.
In 141 cases, he risked serious complications, including making the women infertile and in several other cases, the now-banned medico was responsible for horrific blunders.
His reckless actions carried on unchecked in Perth hospitals for more than four years before he was stopped and banned.
The scandal had been cloaked in secrecy because of a court order obtained by the wealthy surgeon's lawyers, but was revealed by The (Perth) Sunday Times after a marathon and expensive legal fight.
Patients of the surgeon, who cannot be named, told of major surgical errors such as attaching the uterus to the bowel, slicing arteries, performing vaginal "resizings" when they were not needed and incorrectly performed internal procedures.
In 2009, the surgeon, who has since fled the country, pleaded guilty to misconduct and gross carelessness before Western Australia's State Administrative Tribunal.
One charge related to him performing unnecessary secondary operations without the consent of his patients.
After delivering babies through caesarian sections, he removed benign growths, known as fimbrial cysts, from patients' fallopian tubes. These ranged in size from pinheads to large marbles.
He did not tell his patients or seek their consent for the added procedure, which netted him extra money despite the heightened risk of infertility and other serious complications.
The surgeon left Western Australia in early 2007.
In March 2009, he was permanently stripped of his right to work as a doctor in the state after he was found guilty of "disgraceful or dishonorable" conduct for lying about the complaints against him while trying to get work in South Africa.
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