Health authorities in Australia have launched a major inquiry into a disgraced gynaecologist who mutilated and performed unnecessary operations on dozens of women over decades. One patient died after Dr Emil Shawky Gayed operated on her and failed to administer appropriate treatment. The New South Wales (NSW) Department of Health has announced that it has set up an independent special counsel investigation and a dedicated telephone line at each of the hospitals where the surgeon worked. It encouraged women affected by Gayed – who has been banned from practising for three years – to get in touch.

What has become a burgeoning public health scandal in Australia’s most populous state follows an investigation by Guardian Australia into the conduct of Gayed at one of the hospitals where he worked in the regional town of Taree, 310km (190 miles) north of Sydney. Dozens of women in and around the mid-north NSW coastal town have sustained infections, psychological trauma and other complications because of treatment they received from Gayed at the Manning Rural Referral hospital. Gayed performed a hysterectomy on one woman even though she could have been offered treatment of painkillers and bed rest. The woman never consented to a hysterectomy, an investigation by the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) found.(theguardian)…[+]