FORMER Health Minister Ben Shenton has confirmed that one of the consultants who fought to save Elizabeth Rourke when her routine surgery went tragically wrong was initially in charge of the internal inquiry into her death.
Senator Shenton has told the JEP that despite denials from Health director Mike Pollard and another senior Health executive, James Le Feuvre, Dr Richard Lane was definitely involved at the start.
And the Senator says he was surprised to read reports in Saturday’s JEP in which senior officers at the department denied that Dr Lane had been involved, or that reports raising concerns about the doctor who carried out the operation had been made in the days before it took place.
Senator Shenton took over as Health Minister more than six months after Mrs Rourke died in an operation in October 2006 and he stepped down from the job last December. Dr Dolores Moyano Ontiveros was acquitted of Mrs Rourke’s manslaughter at the end of last week in an Assize trial in the Royal Court. A new inquiry was announced after the verdict.
• Picture: Anaesthetist Dr Richard Lane outside the General Hospital
