Dear Patients everywhere,
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| Mariskca du Plessis |
Dr Wynne Lieberthal was the smooth
talking charmer who won every imaginable prize as an orthopaedic registrar in
training at Wits Medical
School in Johannesburg. He then fell from grace equally
spectacularly.
Professor Einhard Erken, who headed
the Orthopaedic Department at the time, said this of him, “During his four
years of training he turned out to be one of the most brilliant registrars the
Department ever trained.”
At the time Lieberthal had a skeleton
in his cupboard that had so many rotten bones that it was a miracle that it
hung together at all. It was certainly not for medical student demonstration
purposes.
In the late eighties before he began training under
the Professor the conman of his Mr Hyde side was causing waves all over the
place.
Having started his own general practitioner practice
in Johannesburg
he embarrassed his two partners by featuring in a headline making story.
Even as a Fellow of the South African Photographic
Society he couldn’t keep his deviousness out of his hobby. This earned him the
dubious distinction of becoming the first person to be disqualified by the
Society after being awarded first prize in a prestigious wild life competition.
He resigned and handed back all the medals he had won.
Experts concluded that the mongoose and cobra in
mortal combat in his photograph were stuffed.
Soon afterwards his partners kicked him out of the
practice without a cent and he escaped any criminal charges because their
lawyer’s advice was “One Jewish boy
doesn’t put another Jewish boy in jail. Leave it to him he will dig his own grave one day.”
Lieberthal had been diddling them by paying cheques
from patients into his private account. He also committed fraud by double
leasing office equipment and motor vehicles that he leased and sold.
Shortly after he opened a second GP practice when he
left the first one in “a big rush” there was the little matter of the theft of
a Mercedes Benz 280 in the winding up of his estate. He had been voluntarily
sequestration.
His insurance company had refused to pay his claim and
his Trustee took this to court believing that it had been repudiated on
“spurious grounds.”
 |
These 38 screws & 17 rods were put in & taken out of a
woman's back in 28 spine operations in three years |
He soon found out how wrong he was. Lieberthal had
been up to his old tricks again. The claim was fraudulent. The car had not been
stolen.
Houdini-like Lieberthal managed to wriggle out of this
unscathed even though the magistrate referred the matter to the Attorney
General with a view to prosecuting him.
Another of his
talents was ripping off insurance companies. In 1991 he, his twin brother Hugh
and several others got away with hundreds of thousands from several life
insurance companies with an ingenious dread disease scheme. A case was opened with
the police but strangely they took it no further.
Just before he went to Medical School
he became addicted to pain killers after having had several back operations. He
was treated as an in patient on several occasions and was still a recovering
drug addict under Erken's supervision when he joined the Medical School.
 |
| Professor Erken |
On leaving Wits in 1996 he quickly built up a thriving
orthopaedic practice at the Rosebank Clinic where he specialised in spinal
surgery. It was not until several years later that a blaze of publicity exposed
the sham that was his looked-up-to public image as a respected doctor.
He had been coining it by often threatening patients
with paralysis unless they had urgent, unnecessary operations. Others were
scared into the theatre with stories of cancerous growths that did not exist.
When all this was going on the Health
Profession Council of South Africa (HPCSA) that claimed to be there for the
well being of voiceless patients, was losing files stuffed with complaints,
while Lieberthal continued to set new records for the numbers lodged against a
single doctor.
One
of these files contained records of 32 cases of his negligence that had been
submitted by three of his fellow specialists. This was possibly unique as
doctors rarely speak ill of each other.
The doctor friendly HPCSA that had
procrastinated for years was finally galvanised into action by a wave of radio
and press publicity that highlighted his appalling record. He was dubbed him “The Butcher Rosebank” by the media. The HPCSA then brought seven charges against him at a disciplinary hearing.
But not before his
botched operations had maimed at least 70 people, some of whom died shortly
after coming under his scalpel.
It cost his medical negligence
insurance company millions in indefensible claims.
One woman had 38 screws and 17 rods
put in her spine and then taken out during 28 operations over a three year
period. They had to be removed when a very virulent infection set. She was
reduced to crawling around on all fours in her tiny house where she lived
alone.
Possibly
his worst mess up involved Mariskca du Plessis. In what should have been a
routine operation to remove rods that had been put in her back by another
surgeon to straighten her spine Lieberthal paralysed her from the waist down. He
inserted screws unnecessarily that severed her spinal cord.
That cost the Provincial Health
Department R6-million to settle the girl’s malpractice claim.
It was in 2002 when she was 14 that
Lieberthal put her permanently into a wheel chair.
He fought the HPCSA allegations
against him with every trick imaginable, but eventually after a hearing that
lasted a year he was found guilty of a mere seven cases of unprofessional
conduct one of which involved Mariskca.
The disciplinary committee hearing the case was told that
“not once did he express regret or admit that he had made a mistake.” His
attitude of “I did nothing wrong” was said to be “frightening.”
He was barred from practising.
Undeterred the wily medic got a job almost immediately as a GP with an Irish
Army peace keeping force in North Africa. They
of course were unaware of his dicey background.
It was only after his year’s contract
ended and the matter was raise in the Irish Parliament that this became public
knowledge.
His subterfuge here did not count
against him in the eyes of the HPCSA that seemed to have a particularly soft
spot for Lieberthal. After all the country was badly in need of orthopaedic
surgeons – at all costs it seemed.
It was not long before he was allowed
back into practice, but only under supervision in a provincial government
hospital.
Without the knowledge of the HPCSA the
doctor, who found it almost impossible to do anything on the level, got a job
at a small government hospital in an out the way little town in the Eastern Cape. It didn’t
have an orthopaedic section so he started one. That’s how much being supervised
meant to him.
The HPCSA ignored that infringement
and suddenly he was in the news again in 2010.
He had just resigned as head of the orthopaedic department at the much
larger provincial hospital in the coal mining town of Witbank,
about an hour and half’s drive from Johannesburg.
The Mr Hyde side of him was back once
more with 13 new complaints having been lodged with the HPCSA.
 |
Left handed Lieberthal is accused of operating
on a man's back while his left arm was in a cast-
The Star 2005 |
Again he was suspended but while these
cases were still pending his strange relationship with the HPCSA enabled him to
practicing once again. He was not allowed to do any surgery but he was given
permission to become a general practitioner.
So he started a GP practice in the small Mpumalanga town of Sabie
(Population 10 000) not far from the Kruger National Park.
If only the Medical
Council had done its job properly by striking him off the register permanent a
lot earlier many lives would not have been ruined.
Then too if the
police and other authorities had done what they are supposed to do this
habitual crook might have had his criminal activities cut short by getting the
punishment he so richly deserved.
One thing even Lieberthal could not cheat and that was
death. He died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Sabie on Sunday 5
June. He was 61.
Oddly enough it appears the people of Sabie never saw
his Mr Hyde side.
The social media tributes and condolences from people
in the town painted him as their perfect Dr Jekyll far removed from the
Lieberthal who had so seriously harmed so many of his patients.
On the town’s Facebook page where it is described as
the “Town of the Year” there was this tribute, “Today Sabie mourns the loss of
a great man. Not only was he our Doctor but he was our friend. Dr Wynne
Lieberthal – we will remember him as the Doctor who became everyone’s friend. A
brilliant mind who was passionate about helping and saving. He lived to serve.
May God bless and comfort his family.”
Other tributes came from Jenny Moolman who wrote: “Very
sad news. Dr Lieberthal, you will be missed by many. You were a very gentle,
caring man, and one of the few doctors in today’s day and age who would see and
attend to your patients any time of the day, even on Sundays. RIP and
condolences to your family.”
And Cathy
Rees added to the accolades with, “Wonderful GP and man. Compassionate and
caring. Has left a huge hole in Sabie. Love and support to his family.”
If only his compassion had
extended to saying he was “Sorry” to Mariskca du Plessis before he died. It
would have meant so much to her.
Confining her to a wheelchair
was compounded by the fact that he had never told her he was sorry for what he did.
Few of his orthopaedic
patients that he operated on will shed a tear and those that he butchered will
no doubt be relieved that he will never again be able to do the same thing to
anybody else.
Regards,
Jon
