Doctor faces manslaughter charge
An Oregon doctor whom Australian authorities charged with killing three patients was arrested Tuesday morning at his home in Portland.
Jayant Patel, 57, now faces an April 10 extradition hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Papak.
The FBI’s arrest of Patel ends months of speculation as to when police would move on the doctor whom Australian authorities suspected of being involved in the deaths of 13 patients.
The three manslaughter charges are connected to three men Patel operated on in 2003 and 2004, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.
In each case, the procedure was one Patel was barred from practicing in the United States and included missteps.
Sandra Ickert, of Vancouver, applauded news of Patel’s arrest.
“It’s been a long time coming,” she said.
Patel operated on Ickert’s mother, 73-year-old Marie Mesecher, in 1997. Mesecher died three hours after the procedure at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland to treat her cancer by removing a portion of her pancreas. Medical records indicate a vein was torn during the operation.
Ickert never questioned the outcome of Mesecher’s operation until she learned of Patel’s background in 2006.
“I hope they do something with him here,” Ickert said. “There is no reason why the FBI or somebody can’t go in to see how many death certificates he signed while he was there.”
According to an Associated Press story Tuesday, Patel made a brief court appearance Tuesday and told U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Hubel “most likely not” when asked whether he could afford an attorney, so he was represented by a federal public defender, Susan Russell.
Born in India to a wealthy family, Patel had been represented by one of the leading defense attorneys in Portland, Stephen Houze, but Houze withdrew from the case.
Russell told the judge that Patel came to the United States in 1977 and became a naturalized citizen in 1982.
He surrendered his Indian passport because India does not allow dual citizenship and has lived with his wife in Portland since 1989, she said.
He came to Portland from New York and worked for Kaiser Permanente until resigning in 2001 – the same year he was required to surrender his medical license in New York. Kaiser settled five lawsuits involving Patel, with a $1.8 million payout in two of the cases.
Hospitals in Oregon restricted or revoked Patel’s surgical privileges by 2000, and by 2002 Patel found work in Australia, according to court documents.
Patel hid his history of professional misconduct and now faces eight counts of fraud related to that deception, along with the manslaughter counts.