A summary of this post: No one knows better than the Andrew Brooks of this world that, with Ms Sue Dawson and her people at the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission regulating the health care professions in NSW, (Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!) Medical Practitioners in NSW can almost literally get away with murder.
One of our readers reports that he was referred to Dr Andrew Brooks, Urologist, for help with the fact that he was having to get up 2 or 3 times a night to urinate, which made it hard to get a good nights sleep – often referred to as “the frequency problem,” and which is said to be quite common in seniors.
It turns out that there are two very different explanations for this problem.
One is that the patient’s bladder, although still of a more normal size, say 350 mls in capacity, has become weaker, so it doesn’t empty itself properly during urination, there’s perhaps 100 to 150 mls of urine left in the bladder, so it starts taking less and less time before it’s full again.
The other explanation is that partial blockages of the urinary tract have meant that the bladder has had to work harder during urination over the years, so it’s become more muscular and smaller in capacity – say down to about 200 mls in capacity.
Brooks pitched the second explanation, saying that on this basis the problem could be fixed by carrying out an operation on the patient, called a TURP operation, in which the partial blockages in the urinary tract were cleared, and that if this was done, his bladder would gradually get back to more normal size, certainly within 3 to 6 months. (By the way, we’ve never heard of anyone, other than Brooks, giving this explanation.)
So the capacity of the patient’s bladder became crucial – which was it in his case? About 350 mls or about 200 mls? Brooks had his nurse carry out an assessment of this – for which the charge was much higher than a proper Urologist would have charged – and of course she backed up Brooks’ explanation.
Our reader says that Brooks has refused to provided him with a copy of his nurses report, even though repeated requests have been made, and even though by law he has to provide it.
When repeated requests for copies of the records, to which the reader was entitled to, emailed to Brooks, and were ignored, Brooks’ famous explanation to the NSW Privacy Commissioner, was that the email address on his website was set up so that, emails from patients were “weeded out” and he didn’t receive them. To which the Privacy Commissioner responded along the lines of, “Oh yes! Assoc. Prof Brooks, that’s a perfectly acceptable explanation as to why you didn’t respond to those emails,” – this when our technology advisers tell us that it’s not possible for email addresses to be set up in this way, when the copies of the emails were also sent to Brooks’ email address on the Sydney University’s website which wouldn’t have been set up in this way, and that when the email address on his website was used to send an email seeking details as to how his $3,2oo fee for less than an hours’ work were to be paid, it was responded to within minutes.
And even when Brooks acknowledged that he’d received the requests, copies of various documents were provided, but never of his nurse’s report – repeated requests to the Privacy Commissioner to get him to provide a copy of this report were ignored.
Where do governments keep finding such useless people to fill these important positions.
So our reader says that, trusting Brooks and the GP who’d referred him to him, he had the TURP operation. As well as involving him in having a full operation anaesthetic, which always has it’s risks, in 2 uncomfortable days in hospital, expenditure of over six thousand dollars, including Brooks’ fee of $3,2oo for less than an hours work, even after Medicare rebates, and even Brooks himself acknowledged in writing some 4 or 5 months later that our reader still had the frequency problem, AND it left him damaged for life in a quite distressing way.
As all males would know, a significant part of the pleasure of having organisms is the feeling of their semen being ejaculated through their penises, and this NEVER happens after TURP operations – the semen goes up into the bladder. This is not something that TURP operations cause sometimes – they always cause it, AND it’s irreversible, it’s for life. Our reader says that every 12 to 18 months he writes to other Urologists asking if a way has yet been found to reverse – and so far he’s always got a negative response.
We’ve set out above our readers’s side of the story, which has been emailed to Brooks so often asking for his side of the story. Has a response ever been received? Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!
To complete the story.
Our reader says he’s never bothered to make a complaint about any of this to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner who’s supposed to prevent Medical Practitioners from getting away with this sort of thing – Hah hah hah ha! Hah hah hah ha! Hah hah hah ha! Because, from past experience with Commissioner Dawson and her people, he knows exactly what would happen – despite having nothing in writing from the reader, Brooks would claim that he explained this inevitable consequence , (What else could he say?) Oh yeah! So the reader had said that he didn’t mind have his sex life largely diminished for the rest of his life, so long as it perhaps saved him from getting up 1 or 2 extra times during the night to go to the toilet. And Dawson would believe Brooks and dismiss the reader’s side of the story, because, in such circumstances, she has a track record of ALWAYS believing doctors and NEVER believing patients – doctors always have the last laugh! And Dawson knows that the Gladys Berejiklians of this world don’t care and the Brad Hazzard of this world don’t care. And no one knows better than the Andrew Brooks of this world that Medical Practitioners in NSW can almost literally get away with murder.
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