#CrossExamination
Bernadette Wicks
16 February 2024 | 12:48
JOHANNESBURG - Peter Beale’s legal team has accused a paediatrician testifying against the murder-accused surgeon of not having all the facts.
Beale’s trial continued in the Johannesburg High Court on Friday.
He’s charged with the murder of three children he had performed surgery on as well as with fraud, with the State alleging the surgeries weren’t even necessary.
Currently, a paediatrician who treated a three-year-old boy Beale had operated on after he subsequently went into distress, is on the stand.
She was called to assist the morning after the surgery.
But on Thursday, she was asked by the bench about the child’s condition prior to that and her evidence was that, from the hospital records, the child had started experiencing problems "way earlier".
Under cross-examination by Beale’s counsel, Ian Green, on Friday, she conceded that she hadn’t looked at or considered all the hospital records, only those that she believed were relevant.
Green’s now put it to her that she didn’t have at her disposal all the facts she needed to make the assertion and should have said as much in her response.
Beale denies he ingored concern over complications suffered by boy he operated on, court hears.
The autopsy found the child’s subsequent death was “consistent with septic peritonitis” and she previously said she had raised concerns that there could be something wrong in the child’s abdomen but that Beale ignored her.
However, Beale’s counsel, Ian Green, said this wasn’t the case, highlighting that the surgeon had performed a peritoneal tap on the child.
She agreed but emphasised that this was at her insistence.
Regardless, Green maintained the effect of this was that Beale hadn’t ignored her concerns or done nothing.
Defence says nurses delayed telling Peter Beale that deceased patient( 3) was in trouble
JOHANNESBURG - Paediatric surgeon Peter Beale’s lawyers have suggested that nurses treating a three-year-old patient of his who ended up dying after an operation he had performed, waited too long to let him know the child was in trouble.
Beale’s counsel, Ian Green, presented hospital records and call logs in court.
They detail how the child in question’s condition continued deteriorating through the night after his surgery -- but that Beale was contacted only twice - - once just before 10pm that evening and then again just before 4.30am the following morning.
Against this backdrop, Green said that there were various markers that ought to have indicated to the nurses caring for him during this time that he required the attention of a doctor - - and that they should have contacted him earlier.
The current witness - a paediatrician who herself assisted with the child’s treatment in his last days - concurred that his status was deteriorating, and he appeared to be in shock and in need of “immediate urgent attention”.
However, she said she couldn’t comment on the “communications or politics” at play as she wasn’t there at the time - - and that from her own experience, every single action taken wasn’t always recorded.
Court has wrapped up and the matter will resume on Monday.