Celebrity nose surgeon William Mooney has been struck off for one year after a tribunal found his negligence had resulted in the deaths of two patients, that were revealed as part of a Herald investigation.
Mooney was also found to have lied to authorities about his relationship with a third patient as well as provided a false medical certificate to cover up his failure to attend mandatory drug testing for cocaine use.
Surgeon Dr William Mooney has been struck off following revelations in the Herald.
“This is not a situation where a practitioner has failed to act in accordance with expected standards or depart from ethical standards on one occasion, or in respect of one course of conduct,” the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) said in a decision handed down on Thursday.
“Dr Mooney has committed acts which are egregious departures from proper standards across a broad range of duties which a doctor owes to his patients and the public,” NCAT held.
The decision to cancel Mooney’s registration follows revelations reported by the Herald in 2018 about the deaths of patients A and B, whose names have been suppressed.
At the time of their operations, neither patient knew that since February 2017 Mooney had conditions placed on his practicing certificate because of allegations of cocaine use.
Patient A, a 24-year-old man, died in March 2018 following a botched operation to fix his snoring which was performed at Strathfield Private Hospital by Mooney, who described himself at the time as “Australia’s leading ENT [Ear, Nose and Throat] specialising in facial plastic surgery”.
The patient’s family had waited hours to see Mooney after the operation, but he never came – not then or in two days before the patient was discharged from the hospital on February 17.
Dr William Mooney has had his medical registration cancelled for a year.
The family was unaware Mooney had to sew over an artery he had nicked during the operation.
Experts said this operation usually took around one and half hours. According to a nurse’s record, Mooney took only 23 minutes.
Patient B had died months earlier. “While operating on patient B, Dr Mooney penetrated the bone below the brain and disrupted an artery causing bleeding into the right frontal lobe. Patient B later passed away without regaining consciousness,” the tribunal found.
Patient B’s wife later successfully sued Mooney for negligence.
While the Herald named the victims in the 2018 reports, the NCAT has since suppressed their identities.
It affirmed that decision on Thursday, saying “there is a recognised need for anonymisation of patients to encourage the public to feel comfortable to make a complaint to the regulator without fear of publicity and loss of privacy and for the health regulator to be able to confidently inform complainants and patients that they will not be identified in future disciplinary proceedings”.
Following the Herald’s revelations in 2018, Mooney vehemently denied any wrongdoing saying, “Each was a tragedy. But contrary to what the Herald alleges, neither was caused by a complication in my procedure.” He also sued – unsuccessfully- for defamation.
Mooney later tried to blame the stresses in his life, including the breakup of his marriage some four years earlier, the adverse media attention and “the loss of a defamation case,” as excuses for lying to the authorities about his avoidance of a drug test.
However, NCAT was satisfied that in October 2018 Mooney had chosen to deliberately lie when he provided medical certificates to explain why he failed to attend mandatory hair drug testing. “He did not just omit or minimise facts. He told the Medical Council he was sick while in fact he was doing his usual work,” the tribunal found.
“Dr Mooney’s conduct in breaching conditions on his registration, and then deliberately lying to the Medical Council and the HCCC about those breaches and other matters, is completely inconsistent with his duty as a medical practitioner to be honest, ethical and trustworthy,” NCAT held.
“We disqualify him from being registered in the medical profession for a period of one year,” said the tribunal. Mooney has been ordered to pay costs.
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