Patients of Indian surgeon Jayant Patel, accused of manslaughter in Australia, on Tuesday demanded a judicial inquiry into their compensation payouts and asked for a special prosecutor to be sent to US to oversee his extradition.
"We want a judicial inquiry... into this whole affair to fully and fairly investigate the whole compensation process and the way it's been handled," Bundaberg Burnett Patient Support Group president Ian Fleming said after patients' meeting with Attorney-General Kerry Shine.
Terming the compensation process as "flawed", he alleged that the claims could have been based on medical records Patel falsified.
"All the victims of Patel are becoming victims all over again with the ridiculous miserly amounts of compensation and bullying tactics by the government and by their own solicitors," Fleming said.
"We've got widows who aren't even receiving enough compensation to cover the funeral expenses. I know one widow who recently tried to commit suicide after settling her claim because she was so distressed by the small amount she received," he said.
Patel, dubbed as 'Dr Death' by the Australian media, has been at the high-security Multnomah Detention Centre in Oregon, US, since he was arrested by the FBI on March 11.
A court at the same place, reviewing his extradition, would have its next hearing on May 27.
Australia is seeking the extradition of Patel regarding 16 charges, including of three deaths arising from botched surgeries and falsifying records during his two-year tenure at Bundaberg hospital in southern Queensland.
Meanwhile, Fleming was quoted by the AAP as saying that the government did not want the payout amounts made public because they were "woefully inadequate".
On his part, Shine said that the effort was on to ensure outstanding compensation claims for eight former patients were resolved as quickly as possible.
Disclosing that a patient had chosen to take court action over compensation, Shine said, "The special process was set up to provide former patients of Jayant Patel with fair and reasonable compensation for injuries they suffered as a result of his treatment.
It is a very fair process which has regularly provided higher payments to former patients than if they had gone through the courts," he added.
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