Cape Town – Johannesburg paediatric surgeon, Professor Peter Beale, is reportedly facing three murder charges following the death of his three minor patients.
Reports said the victims aged 10, three, and 21 months old, died after Beale allegedly performed surgery on them.
Beale, 75, allegedly convinced the parents that the surgeries were necessary when they were not, reports said.
News24 reported that Beale appeared at the Gauteng High Court on Wednesday facing five charges, including fraud and murder with a possibility of more charges to be added.
The report said the paediatrician allegedly caused the death of a three-year-old boy, in March 2012 and allegedly accused of causing the death of a 21-month-old girl at Morningside Medi-Clinic in July 2016.
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He allegedly defrauded the boy’s mother by claiming pathology results revealed a rectal biopsy stating the child had Hirschsprung’s disease that required surgical intervention in the form of a rectal pull-through, the report said.
The report said it was alleged that Beale knew that the rectal pull-through procedure was neither necessary nor appropriate and the cause of death was consistent with septic peritonitis as a complication of surgery for Hirschsprung’s.
In 2019, Beale was charged with culpable homicide over the death of a 10-year-old boy, following surgery to treat acid reflux, reported EWN.
The report said that was changed to murder last January, and an additional charge of culpable homicide was added to his indictment over the death of a 21-month-old girl following the same surgery.
Beale is accused of performing all the surgeries he has been charged over, under the guise they were necessary when they were not, the report said.
The trial was postponed to January 2024.
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Compiled by Olwethu Mpeshe
