Bali International Medical Centre, a typically bad Indo hospital?

Bali International Medical Centre, a typically bad Indo hospital?
By Dr Nomor
Jun 28, 2007, 09:48

BIMC - Your lives in their hands?

Our story is about the much self-lauded Bali International Medical Centre (BMIC) which says it was founded by Australian businessman Craig Beveridge and prominent hospital administrator Dr. Neale Fong who they claim is the Chief Executive Officer of one of Australia’s largest private hospitals; St. John of God Health Care in Perth, Western Australia. BIMC Hospital’s web site goes on to claim ongoing training and education has enabled their staff to be up to date with the latest in medical care and emergency treatment, plus “Each year BIMC sends its medical staff to Australia for valuable training and experience in western standard medical practice”. We don’t think so! We think that can only be typically false Indonesian marketing.

You see, we received a tip-off that one Mr. Ian Raymond Gregory, formerly Dr. Ian Raymond Gregory, a disgraced ex-doctor from New South Wales has recently been appointed by the Bali International Medical Centre to head one of their departments. We actually contacted BIMC asking if it was true Mr. Gregory, who we pointed out had been found guilty of "a gross lack of adequate skill, judgment and care as to amount to professional misconduct" on the 5th May 2000 by the NSW Medical Tribunal, was about to join their management / senior surgical team. We actually received a response from one Katrina Maja, manager of the particular BIMC unit we were told Mr. Gregory was running, which indicated our informant was correct as we sent our enquiry to the general email address for the BIMC, not to that particular department. Katrina informed us that Craig Beveridge would be returning in a few days time and would reply substantially to us; despite reminders he never did. So we believe it is fair to say Mr. Gregory is now a practicing surgeon and department head at the Bali International Medical Centre.

So what did then Dr. now Mr. Gregory, as we believe he never was allowed to become a registered and therefore a true doctor again, do so wrong? It seems according to the NSW tribunal notes we were sent quite a lot. For example Ian Raymond Gregory made several wrongful prognosis and operated unnecessarily on patients, sometimes Ian Gregory made a correct diagnosis but then operated on the wrong / other side of the body, Ian also claimed he was suffering from a bipolar condition (a pervasive manic depressive and hypomanic condition), admitted taking ecstasy and cocaine regularly, and took advantage sexually of one of his patients considered to be particularly vulnerable. Ian Gregory then removed his own name from the Register of Medical Practitioners on March 1st, 2000 in an apparent attempt to avoid the medical tribunal hearing against him on the 5th May that year. The tribunal went ahead however and ordered that Ian Gregory not be re-registered as a doctor. And yet here he is practicing surgery in Bali. Although we have such a very low opinion of foreign expatriates in Bali and anything allegedly professional in Indonesia anyway and therefore think Mr. Gregory’s CV (resume) makes him perfect for the ‘orrible paradise island, we still do not recommend anyone going anywhere near him with or without a sharp instrument in his hand!

Of course the specter of one disgraced, potentially highly dangerous surgeon practicing at the Bali International Medical Centre, whose history has been pointed out to puff chested owners Craig Beveridge and Dr. Neale Fong, does beg the question just how good and even qualified are the medical staff at the BIMC generally? You see, it was only the other week that The Age Newspaper of Australia published a report about the massive Singaporean medical tourist business and interviewed who? That’s right, they interviewed a patient, from Indonesia, suffering from an earlier botched operation in Jakarta, in Singapore to get professional medical help from a competent hospital. What sort of operation did the Indonesian hospital botch you ask? Was it something complicated requiring surgery from only a handful of specialists in the world? No, it was a bad basic kidney stone removal operation the poor man had suffered at Indonesian health care professional’s hands.

Indonesian operating theatre?

The problem it seems is Indonesia’s nasty system means wealthy families' children go into something with a lot of potential corruption and extortion wise, not humanity based professions like medicine; unless they are selling drugs of course! While the general population can not get a decent enough education to become a decent doctor, even if they could break the Indonesian mold mould of money at all costs means everything attitude. Foreign doctors of any repute are hardly likely to work in such poorly equipped, corrupt, badly staffed, virus factories with questionable blood supplies as in Indonesia. So the chances of anyone, even with the greatest of good intentions being able to set up a western standard hospital in the archipelago of hate is highly unlikely at best, no matter how hard they try. Likely they would end up with people who can not practice medicine elsewhere and the best of the worst of domestic medical staff.

It seems BIMC actually accept this, or rather they have provision for affluent expatriates and Indonesians in Bali to get treatment elsewhere, in so much as they offer a helicopter and other aircraft medical evacuation service “to the nearest competent medical facility in the region or to a patient’s home country”; so BIMC is not a competent medical facility by their own admission? BIMC actually work with Air Bali on this, a regular commercial passenger helicopter charter outfit. Which is fine, but wouldn’t it be better, if only from a time saving point of view where every minute can mean the difference between life and death, for a fully equipped specialist air ambulance to whisk the patient as quickly as possible to a capable hospital? Isn’t using a charter passenger helicopter akin to, albeit a step up from what the Balinese public emergency medical “system” provides? Where badly injured people without wallets get bundled into the back of a small public “bemos” (buses) which eventually arrive at one of Bali’s even more woefully equipped and staffed public hospitals?

Of course we think this is yet another reason to avoid Bali, in case you fall very ill. And yet another reason to use the leverage of boycotting everything Indonesian in order to force their nation [sic] to reform and create a set of circumstances where truly International class hospitals can establish without the apparent need to hire apparently very dodgy and downright dangerous doctors.