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  • Inquiry launched after St Vincent's chemo patients under-dosed

    Author: AAP

St Vincent's Hospital will accept any recommendations made by NSW Health, after one of its doctors under-dosed chemotherapy drugs to cancer patients.

A Sydney hospital has welcomed a review after one of its doctors under-dosed chemotherapy drugs to cancer patients over three years.

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Dr John Grygiel was an oncologist at St Vincent's Hospital when he gave incorrect doses of the chemotherapy drug carboplatin to 70 head and neck cancer patients from 2012 to 2015.

St Vincent's will accept any recommendations made by NSW Health, which is holding a review into the hospital on Wednesday, hospital spokesman David Faktor said.

"We have agreed to go beyond the matter raised last week and extend the review's terms to include other cancer types involving the doctor in question," Mr Faktor said on Wednesday.

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"For St Vincent's, this is about public confidence in our systems and processes."

There was no evidence of systematic errors within the hospital, Mr Faktor said.

The review will be co-led by the Cancer Institute of NSW and the Clinical Excellence Commission, a NSW Health spokeswoman said.

"The review will cover the adequacy, timeliness and scope of St Vincent's Hospital's response and identify areas for systemic improvement," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

Dr Grygiel took leave last Thursday, which will carry on until his planned retirement next month, Health Minister Jillian Skinner has said.

"He will not return to the hospital," she said.

"This has been a distressing time for Dr Grygiel's patients and their families."

Dr Grygiel was immediately placed under supervision and counselled after another staff member reported the issue in August last year.

Although the under-dosing was picked up six months ago, the hospital chose not to tell patients until it had been independently investigated.

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