The National Chest Hospital inSt Andrew. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

Dr Dennis Pyne, a consultant vascular thoracic surgeon at the National Chest Hospital, has been accused of being hasty in his decisions to perform definitive surgery on patients before obtaining biopsy results.

According to a damning report made by a seven-member committee, established by the Ministry of Health to review the operations of the National Chest Hospital, Pyne regularly per-formed biopsies which are a recognised procedure to facili-tate the planning of definitive management of patients' diseases.

"However, instead of awaiting the results of the biopsies, he often proceeded to perform definitive surgery without having prior confirma-tion of the need for the specific operation that was performed," the report stated.

Pyne is currently off the island and efforts to contact his attorney Jacqueline Samuels-Brown were unsuccessful.

The report further stated that the operations were done within a day or two of the biopsies. This practice is not in keeping with established standards and norms.

Centre of controversy

Pyne has been at the centre of controversy since some doctors complained that he was charging patients for services at the public-health institution, even though Government had abolished user fees since April 1.

Pyne was interdicted last July and is being paid a quarter of his salary. The attorney general is to make a decision on his fate soon.

The report also stated that there was at least one case in which a patient was operated on and the subsequent histology suggested that the operation was unnecessary.

Other findings of the report

There were instances in which Pyne referred patients who were already admitted as public patients, to himself, to be managed by him privately. This was also in breach of the established protocol.

Pyne performed a general surgical procedure on a patient on May 22, 2007, the day after he was cautioned by the Medical Council to restrict his practice to that of thoracic surgery only. This general surgery resulted in the patient developing a complication for which Pyne did another major general surgical procedure on June 12, 2007. The patient then developed another complication from this latter surgery which contributed to the patient's hospitalisation being prolonged.

At the time of the caution, the Medical Council had determined that Pyne was guilty of professional misconduct, both in terms of omission and commission, in the performance of his functions as a medical practitioner in Canada.

Invoices were found indicating that in addition to the surgeon's fees, patients were also billed for assistant surgeons and anaesthetists fees, but the committee found no evidence that these monies were paid over to these professionals. In fact, on interviewing several of these professionals they denied receiving payment.