By Violet Li
Services at a women’s health clinic in Hampton Park have been partially closed and a surgeon suspended following a Casey woman’s death after an abortion surgery.
Narre Warren South woman and mother of two Harjit Kaur died shortly after a pregnancy termination surgery in Hampton Park Women’s Health Clinic on 12 January.
The Department of Health suspended the clinic’s registration as a day procedure centre on 29 February following two days of inspection. The suspension does not apply to general practices services.
On 15 March, the Medical Board of Australia suspended the registration of obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Rudolph Lopes, who performed the abortion surgery on Miss Kaur.
The reason behind the suspension has not been revealed and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) is unable to comment further about individual practitioners, or any investigations being undertaken in relation to an individual practitioner, beyond the information already in the public domain.
In a statement, AHPRA said it had received a range of concerns about a number of practitioners associated with the clinic and some of these concerns were also before the Victorian Coroner.
“AHPRA has established a specialist team to lead a coordinated examination of these issues which involve multiple practitioners across a number of professions and a number of practice locations,” it stated.
“Our investigation will continue in parallel with the coronial inquest into the death of a patient, respecting the integrity of the coroner’s critical work.”
A Coroners Court spokesperson said the death of Harjit Kaur was reported to the court and the coronial investigation was ongoing.
“As this is an active investigation, no further comment can be made,” they said.
The clinic’s medical director Dr Michelle Kenney said Miss Kaur’s death was very tragic, sudden, and unexpected, and nobody wanted to see that happen.
“My team had 30 seconds to respond to her heart stopping and they performed an excellent resuscitation which lasted for over 45 minutes,” she said.
Dr Kenney believed that the suspension of the day surgeries and Dr Lopes’ registration had no direct connection with the death of Miss Kaur.
“We are now being called murderers,” she said.
Dr Kenney said that Dr Lopes ordered a coroner’s inquest days after the death of Miss Kaur.
“He spoke with a forensic pathologist who had done the autopsy on Miss Kaur. The forensic pathologist was stumped. He didn’t know what had caused her death. He ruled out a surgical or anaesthetic cause and he was taking it to a group of senior pathologists,” she said.
“Last we heard, they were investigating congenital cardiac causes.
“What’s happened is the authorities have looked at everything else in the clinic, which was non-sinister, and turned it into something sinister to throw mud at us, whilst being totally uninterested in what happened on the day.”
She claimed that Dr Lopes’s suspension was due to a compliance issue regarding a supervision condition imposed by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
According to the VCAT judgement on 19 October 2021, Dr Lopes was found to have engaged in professional misconduct.
He was reprimanded over alleged lewd remarks to a patient and long-term sexual harassment of a midwife.
VCAT stated that Dr Lopes must be required to work in a supervised environment under specific conditions.
“Regardless of our doctor’s history with AHPRA, they were and still are highly experienced registered specialists,” Dr Kenney said.
She also claimed that the suspension of the day surgeries in the clinic had something to do with past paperwork and administrative issues, instead of the death of Miss Kaur.
A spokesperson for the bereaved family Suresh Rajan: said: “What we want to be sure is that nobody else goes through the issues that we’ve had to go through.”
Mr Rajan said the husband was still in a complete state of shock, absolutely shattered.
The couple came to Australia about five years ago and was said to have worked very hard.
Before the tragedy, Miss Kaur had just started an IT executive position at Nike and she was going to buy a new house with her husband.
“All she’s done is to work hard to help everyone, help her family back home, help her children, just to make sure that everyone else is looked after,” Mr Rajan recalled.
Victoria Police confirmed it had received a report from the AHPRA and there would be no criminal investigation at this stage.
