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Suspended QEH cardiology boss speaks out

One of the state’s most senior doctors fears his suspension for alleged misconduct is connected to his criticisms of the State Government’s Transforming Health process.

Dec 06, 2016, updated Dec 06, 2016
QEH staff are supporting suspended cardiac unit head John Horowitz. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily.

QEH staff are supporting suspended cardiac unit head John Horowitz. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily.

Professor John Horowitz, who slammed the Government’s health plans in a piece written for InDaily last month, is being investigated “following allegations of misconduct from clinical colleagues”, the Central Adelaide Local Health Network said in a statement.

“These allegations are in no way related to the Government’s Transforming Health reforms,” the statement said.

“As per standard process, the employee has been asked to remain absent from duties during the investigation.”

However, Horowitz, director of the Cardiology/Clinical Pharmacology Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Professor of Cardiology at the University of Adelaide, said today that he believed the action taken against him is related to his criticism of Transforming Health.

“I can’t prove it, but I think that it’s highly likely,” he told FIVEaa.

Horowitz has only been back at work for two weeks after recovering from a kidney transplant on October 12.

InDaily understands that for the previous eight months he was unable to do rounds because he was undergoing dialysis.

Professor John Horowitz

Professor John Horowitz

Horowitz said the suspension meant he was unable to treat his patients at the QEH nor carry out university research, which would disadvantage his students.

“I’m very puzzled at the whole business, but I guess, as you say, it will play out,” he told FIVEaa.

He said he had been under “a great deal of scrutiny” over the past 18 months due to his criticism of Transforming Health.

While he did not know the specifics of the allegations against him, “I know the accusation is generically bullying.”

In his November article for InDaily, Horowitz said the Transforming Health plans would cripple cardiology services at the QEH.

“It is currently proposed to reduce our bed numbers from about 28 to six, and to close our two cardiac catheterisation laboratories, which perform about 1500 procedures per annum, including management of heart attacks, insertion of pacemakers, and also diagnostic work in patients with angina, heart failure and cardiac rhythm disturbances,” he wrote.

“These services also provide the basis for QEH cardiac research, which has a strong reputation world-wide.

“In summary, the Government’s plans would effectively cripple our whole functionality: we might as well be closed.”

Transforming Health clinical ambassador Dorothy Keefe contested some of Horowitz’s claims in a subsequent article.

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