Medical Negligence Australia

04/09/2026

Imagine going to a doctor because you are in pain. You are vulnerable, frightened and looking for answers. You trust the person standing in front of you because they are the specialist. You trust the hospital. You trust the regulators. You trust that nobody is going to remove a healthy organ from your body unless it is absolutely necessary.

Now imagine discovering that trust may have cost you your fertility.

Former Melbourne gynaecologist Dr Simon Gordon has now been referred by the Medical Board of Australia to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), where he faces allegations of professional misconduct relating to his treatment of women with endometriosis and pelvic pain.

It is important to state clearly: these are allegations. VCAT has not yet determined that Gordon committed professional misconduct, and Gordon has denied wrongdoing.

But what patients are alleging deserves to be heard.

An ABC Four Corners investigation reported accounts from women who underwent repeated surgery after being told they had severe endometriosis, while pathology in some cases reportedly showed little or no endometriosis. Procedures allegedly performed on patients included removal of ovaries, fallopian tubes and uteruses.

One patient’s story is particularly difficult to comprehend.

Courtney Paton underwent seven operations.

According to ABC, her family paid more than $32,000 for surgeries performed by Gordon. By the age of just 25, both of her ovaries and her uterus had been removed.

She can never naturally conceive a child.

ABC reported that pathology from her operations repeatedly failed to demonstrate the severe endometriosis she believed she was being treated for, apart from one tiny finding that another specialist reportedly considered potentially clinically insignificant.

But this investigation raises another question that may be even more important than what happened inside the operating theatre:

Where were the safeguards?

ABC reports concerns about Gordon’s practices were raised with Epworth management, AHPRA and Victoria’s health complaints system over several years.

In Courtney’s case, concerns were reportedly raised with Epworth management in June 2022, after her second o***y had already been removed.

Then in September 2024, a professor of gynaecology and two other doctors reportedly complained to AHPRA, raising concerns that young women had undergone removal of ovaries despite pathology not confirming the severe disease they had reportedly been told they had.

And now look at the scale.

Law firm Arnold Thomas & Becker says more than 500 former patients have contacted the firm. It currently represents 295 women.

Clients allege injuries including loss of fertility, premature surgical menopause, chronic pelvic pain and lasting physical and psychological harm. Multiple civil proceedings have commenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

The Victorian Government has now committed $2 million to support affected women and girls, while Epworth has commissioned an independent external review examining its clinical-governance systems, including credentialling, oversight of clinical practice and the handling of concerns raised by patients and staff.

Think about what that means.

This story is no longer simply about whether one surgeon made the right clinical decisions.

It raises questions about hospitals, complaints processes, regulators and the systems supposedly designed to identify dangerous patterns before hundreds of patients are potentially affected.

A woman cannot grow another uterus.

She cannot simply replace her ovaries.

You cannot hand someone their fertility back after it has been surgically taken away.

And if the allegations before the tribunal are ultimately established, saying “the system has learned from this” will be very little consolation to women who may live with those consequences for the rest of their lives.

That is why medical negligence matters.

Patients should not have to become investigators themselves before someone listens to them. Complaints should not need to reach the hundreds before patterns are taken seriously. And when doctors themselves raise concerns, Australians deserve to know what happened next, who investigated them, and whether patients were adequately protected while that process unfolded.

The Medical Board’s referral to VCAT is an important step.

But for the women involved, the bigger question remains:

How did it ever get this far?

03/09/2026

28/08/2026

THIS ISN’T JUST AN AMERICAN STORY.

Depo-Provera is still registered for use in Australia.

And documents released by Australia’s own drug regulator reveal something Australian women deserve to know.

In February 2024, Pfizer Australia formally asked the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to add a meningioma warning to the professional Product Information for Depo-Provera.

The proposed warning stated that meningiomas had been reported following long-term use of progestins, including medroxyprogesterone acetate — the active drug in Depo-Provera.

On 26 February 2024, the TGA approved the meningioma warning.

But then came an extraordinary question.

In December 2024, the TGA was asked:

“The meningioma risk is in the Product Information but not in the Consumer Medicine Information – why not?”

The TGA responded that ensuring the Consumer Medicine Information was consistent with the professional Product Information was the sponsor’s responsibility.

The sponsor?

Pfizer Australia.

Meanwhile, the international evidence continued to grow.

A major 2024 study published in the BMJ found prolonged use of injectable medroxyprogesterone acetate was associated with approximately 5.6 times the odds of intracranial meningioma requiring surgery.

Thousands of women have since brought claims in the United States alleging they developed meningiomas after using Depo-Provera. Pfizer disputes liability, but in 2026 a settlement program was established covering a majority of claims in the massive federal litigation.

And here in Australia, Depo-Provera remains registered.

This is why informed consent matters.

It isn’t enough for warnings to exist somewhere deep inside regulatory documents intended for health professionals.

Women deserve to know the risks of a medication they are being asked to put into their bodies.

Future Solutions Foundation believes patients deserve transparency, accountability and access to information that allows them to make genuinely informed decisions about their health.

Because informed consent without adequate information isn’t informed consent.

22/08/2026

A one size fits all medical procedure should never be forced on to anyone, especially our children, and is bound to cause injuries, side effects and complications to some people.

We support the stand against the no jab no play policy which never should have been implemented.

21/08/2026

For decades, thousands of Australian families have carried the consequences of one of the darkest chapters in our medical history.

From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Australians undergoing routine transfusions or receiving blood products were infected with hepatitis C and HIV. Estimates range from 8,000 to as many as 20,000 people. Hundreds reportedly died, including children. Others have lived with lifelong illness, stigma, grief and unanswered questions.

In 2004, a brief Senate inquiry recommended a national apology.

That apology never came.

More than twenty years later, survivors and grieving families are still waiting for the full truth, meaningful accountability and a fair examination of compensation.

Now, a new Senate inquiry has finally been secured through the combined efforts of Senator Malcolm Roberts, Senator Anne Ruston and Senator Jordon Steele-John.

It will investigate the collection, testing and supply of contaminated blood; the safeguards that failed; the decisions made by government agencies and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories; whether commercial considerations influenced those decisions; the impact on partners, children, parents and carers; and the unresolved questions of responsibility and compensation.

This inquiry is expected to report in mid-2027.

For those who were infected, those who lost their lives and the families who have spent decades fighting to be heard, this cannot become another inquiry that produces a report and then disappears into a government archive.

They deserve the truth.

They deserve an apology.

They deserve accountability.

And where failures caused preventable injury and death, they deserve justice and fair compensation.

Medical Negligence Australia and Future Solutions Foundation stand with every survivor and every family still carrying the consequences of Australia’s infected blood scandal.

Their voices must finally be heard.

13/08/2026

A Melbourne grandmother entered hospital expecting a routine procedure to remove a cancerous skin lesion.

She woke to discover that a completely different and far more invasive operation had been performed.

According to recent reporting, Debra Buchanan attended Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital on 23 January for removal of a cancerous skin lesion. Ms Buchanan says concerns began before surgery when staff called for “Deborah” rather than properly confirming her identity. Another woman nearby reportedly responded that she was Deborah, but staff proceeded with Ms Buchanan.

After waking from surgery, Ms Buchanan discovered she was bleeding heavily. The lesion she had attended hospital to have removed was still there.

Instead, a large portion of her external genitalia had reportedly been removed during an operation she says she had neither expected nor consented to. She subsequently had to return to the hospital for the procedure she had originally attended to receive.

The consequences extend far beyond the operating theatre. Ms Buchanan has described being left traumatised, anxious about attending doctors and having lost confidence in the healthcare system.

Western Health has not commented on the individual patient’s care, citing privacy and confidentiality. It stated that where an adverse patient event occurs, its obligations under Victoria’s Statutory Duty of Candour include an apology, meeting with the patient, reviewing the incident and sharing findings and actions intended to prevent recurrence.

This case highlights why patient identification, informed consent and surgical verification procedures are not administrative formalities. They are fundamental safeguards designed to prevent catastrophic and irreversible harm.

When those safeguards fail, the consequences are carried by a human being, potentially for the rest of their life.

Future Solutions Foundation and Medical Negligence Australia believe Australians harmed through failures in healthcare deserve to be heard, supported and treated with dignity.

01/08/2026

How hard is it to change the world?
Perhaps not as hard as you think.
It just takes one tiny choice. 
A follow. A share. A conversation.
One small choice could like ripple outward to become a tidal wave with an impact beyond what you could ever imagine.
And that is what the first Future Solutions Foundation project is all about. Helping everyday Aussies reach other everyday Aussies to empower others to make informed decisions for a healthier future. 

Future Solutions Foundation is a registered Australian charity committed to empowering Australians through education, awareness and support. We believe informed decisions begin with access to trusted information, and that by sharing knowledge, we can help build a healthier future for everyone.

We have many more projects to build. This is where we start. You can help. 

It’s free, it doesn’t hurt, and it just could change the world.