The Courier Mail (Australia)
May 27, 2006
A QUEENSLAND woman who posed as a doctor in Cambodia is again treating patients two months after she was exposed as a fraud and accused of dangerously misdiagnosing patients.
In a case with striking similarities to Bundaberg's Dr Death, Jayant Patel, former Townsville resident Gloria Christie, 50, fled Cambodia in March after failing to provide government health officials with documentation supporting her claim that she was a qualified medical doctor.
The officials had acted on a complaint from an Australian woman living in Cambodia.
The woman became suspicious of Christie's claim to be a doctor after she had wrongly diagnosed her five-year-old daughter with a fractured skull at the popular medical clinic Christie ran for travellers and expatriates in Phnom Penh.
Local newspapers later revealed that the woman known around the city as "Doctor Gloria" was in fact an Australian-trained nurse.
The publicity that surrounded the case has since encouraged others to come forward with alarming claims of gross medical malpractice performed by Christie on patients over a four-year period.
One man has claimed that in 2003 Christie told him his young son was dying from lymphatic cancer and was "going to die", a false diagnosis.
In another case, Ingrid Muan, 39, an American expert in Cambodian art history, died shortly after Christie treated her for fever in January last year. Ms Muan was seven months' pregnant at the time.
An expatriate doctor working in Phnom Penh told The Courier-Mail:: "There's a lot of questions that need to be answered about the way these people were treated."
Dr Scott, a British national who operates the Tropical and Travellers Medical Clinic in Phnom Penh said: "There needs to be an proper inquiry. She should be investigated for fraud, indecent assault . . . and possible manslaughter".
But in an country where endemic corruption often undermines the rule of law, justice for Christie's alleged victims now appears unlikely.
Earlier this month Christie slipped back into the country and this week opened a new medical clinic in Phnom Penh.
When The Courier-Mail rang Christie in Phnom Penh yesterday to offer her an opportunity to respond to the serious allegations made against her, she refused to comment.
"I'm not commenting to the press. Basically this is becoming harassment. It's a two-month-old story. It should be forgotten", she said. Asked if she was treating patients again, Christie hung up the phone. But The Courier-Mail has confirmed that she has treated at least one patient in her clinic this week.
But while Christie's life of lies appeared set to continue in Cambodia, in Australia her three children are trying to come to terms with the knowledge that their mother has been deceiving them for years.
Yesterday, one of her children, David Christie, 22, a consultant in a recruitment firm, said he had little sympathy for his mother's predicament.
In a case with striking similarities to Bundaberg's Dr Death, Jayant Patel, former Townsville resident Gloria Christie, 50, fled Cambodia in March after failing to provide government health officials with documentation supporting her claim that she was a qualified medical doctor.
The officials had acted on a complaint from an Australian woman living in Cambodia.
The woman became suspicious of Christie's claim to be a doctor after she had wrongly diagnosed her five-year-old daughter with a fractured skull at the popular medical clinic Christie ran for travellers and expatriates in Phnom Penh.
Local newspapers later revealed that the woman known around the city as "Doctor Gloria" was in fact an Australian-trained nurse.
The publicity that surrounded the case has since encouraged others to come forward with alarming claims of gross medical malpractice performed by Christie on patients over a four-year period.
One man has claimed that in 2003 Christie told him his young son was dying from lymphatic cancer and was "going to die", a false diagnosis.
In another case, Ingrid Muan, 39, an American expert in Cambodian art history, died shortly after Christie treated her for fever in January last year. Ms Muan was seven months' pregnant at the time.
An expatriate doctor working in Phnom Penh told The Courier-Mail:: "There's a lot of questions that need to be answered about the way these people were treated."
Dr Scott, a British national who operates the Tropical and Travellers Medical Clinic in Phnom Penh said: "There needs to be an proper inquiry. She should be investigated for fraud, indecent assault . . . and possible manslaughter".
But in an country where endemic corruption often undermines the rule of law, justice for Christie's alleged victims now appears unlikely.
Earlier this month Christie slipped back into the country and this week opened a new medical clinic in Phnom Penh.
When The Courier-Mail rang Christie in Phnom Penh yesterday to offer her an opportunity to respond to the serious allegations made against her, she refused to comment.
"I'm not commenting to the press. Basically this is becoming harassment. It's a two-month-old story. It should be forgotten", she said. Asked if she was treating patients again, Christie hung up the phone. But The Courier-Mail has confirmed that she has treated at least one patient in her clinic this week.
But while Christie's life of lies appeared set to continue in Cambodia, in Australia her three children are trying to come to terms with the knowledge that their mother has been deceiving them for years.
Yesterday, one of her children, David Christie, 22, a consultant in a recruitment firm, said he had little sympathy for his mother's predicament.
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