A GOLD Coast hospital surgeon who seriously injured a patient during an operation three years ago has been stood down after another “significant clinical incident”.

In the first case, the doctor, on a $350,000-a-year salary, accidentally stapled the vagina of a woman during routine surgery at a Gold Coast hospital.

This time, a middle-aged man was left with “massive urological trauma” caused during a hernia operation. Gold Coast Health confirmed yesterday the surgeon had been stood down on February 1 and the Office of the Health Ombudsman and the Health Practitioners Regulation Agency were investigating.

But the Bulletin understands some staff are furious with management, having warned bureaucrats in recent months about the ageing doctor continuing to perform surgery.

The surgeon had been taken off the on-call rosters after the incident at the Gold Coast hospital in 2013, the source said.

media_camera MP Ros Bates, a registered nurse, who received complaints from hospital nursing staff after the clinical incident. Picture: Jono Searle.

Professor Marianne Vonau, GCH’s executive director of clinical governance, education and research, said: “We apologised to the patient and offer our full and ongoing support.

“There was a previous incident involving the same surgeon in 2013. In response Gold Coast Health implemented a number of measures to ensure safe outcomes for our patients.

“The surgeon has been working under a restricted scope of practice and there were no other clinical incidents from that point until now. Throughout this period we were aware of concerns raised by staff.”

Hospital sources say the surgeon had been stopped from performing major surgery.

The latest incident had ­resulted from “a major technical error”.

“He did a hernia a few weeks ago,” the source said.

“The patient had a major ­injury to the bladder and rectum. It will take some time to recover from that.”

The 2013 case happened on a female patient undergoing bowel surgery. Usually the healthy bowel is rejoined by stitching or stapling the ends, hospital sources said.

“You use a staple through the rectum to staple the end of the bowel together but you have to make sure the uterus at the back of the vagina is off it, so that you are not stapling the vaginal wall,” the source said.

The Bulletin late this week received a complaint about the surgeon and Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates, a registered nurse, also confirmed nursing sources had voiced their concerns.

Professor Vonau said the hospital was not aware of any clinical compensation claim in relation to latest incident, or the one in 2013.

“It would be inappropriate to comment in any further detail until the outcome of the investigation is known,” she said.