Surgeon Charlie Teo hits out before Health Care Complaints Commission after NSW Medical Council ban

Banned neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has launched a scathing attack on the media and medics who he claims ‘destroyed’ him – saying they have ‘blood on their hands’ because they let children die when he could have saved them. 

Dr Teo has been banned from operating in Australia for the past 15 months without written approval under NSW Medical Council restrictions following a previous investigation into alleged unsatisfactory conduct in the workplace.

Next week he will front a five-day Health Care Complaints Commission hearing which is probing five new allegations against him.

But the brain surgeon, who can also no longer work in the USA or Singapore, says he has been demonised in the Australian press – and he insists it’s costing lives.

‘I don’t know why a particular journalist or particular newspaper, a particular show or 14 particular neurosurgeons have taken on this task of destroying me,’ Mr Teo, 64, told Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris on his Straight Talk podcast. 

‘But as long as they understand they have blood on their hands.

‘I really want them to know that. I want them to know that, you might not like me, you might want to destroy me, and you’ve succeeded. 

‘But there’s not a day goes by that I don’t see a case that’s died, or was going to die that I could have saved. It’s terrible.’ 

Dr Teo says his ground-breaking brain surgery on ‘inoperable’ tumours was at first lauded by patients and the media, and gave him a ‘Bambi-like’ reputation.

But he argues his Messiah-like status was sabotaged by jealous rivals and the media.

‘I don’t know who’s behind it all but all the media has basically tried to make me look like I’m some sort of terrible person,’ he said.

‘Once they came out with all those headlines, all the colleagues who were jealous and fuming, wanting to destroy me, go, “Yes, Now we can go in for the kill!”

‘It was like a wolfpack seeing blood – a feeding frenzy. All these complaints started coming in.

‘Suddenly, Bambi was no longer Bambi. Bambi was a demon. And now we can go get him and we destroy him.’

One of his patients, Bella Howard, 7, of Shoal Bay, NSW was operated on by Dr Teo after her parents desperately tried to prolong her life when an aggressive tumour was detected on her brain stem.

She was left with left-side paralysis after the family paid Dr Teo $100,000 in April, 2020 for surgery and died seven months later after the tumour returned.

He admits his pioneering high risk surgery – usually where other doctors have said the associated dangers of an operation were too high – often had ‘terrible’ outcomes.

But more often than not, he said he had good outcomes – and he has been treated unfairly.

He added: ‘I’ve done 11,000 brain tumours, can we please talk about some of the good results?

‘The judge at the time stopped me and said, “We’re not here to talk about the 11,000 cases, we’re here to talk about the two patients on the table.”

‘But that’s so unfair, because the outcomes of those patients was terrible.

‘They’re using those bad outcomes to say I should never have operated in the first place. It led to my professional demise. 

‘There’s 11,000 other cases out there, of whom the majority have done well. I think that should be put into the equation as well before you start persecuting someone.’

He said he had been victimised by rivals who had used the system to ruin him.

‘It’s got nothing to do with fairness and what’s right or wrong,’ he said.

‘It’s all got to do with people’s agendas. And the agenda is to destroy Charlie Teo.

‘And they have succeeded.’

He said even sympathetic neurosurgeon colleagues were unable to help him return to surgery in Australia because of the strict restrictions on supervising him.

He said he now mentors neurosurgeons in Spain on his specialised techniques on brainstem tumour operations which were previously avoided by surgeons.

And he hopes to be able to still operate in other countries – but is keeping them secret for fear of sparking another media outcry which will shut him down again.

‘I’ve got this skill. I mean, I know it,’ he said. ‘I take out tumours that no one else can take out. 

‘And all the surgeons around the world that watch me are just absolutely amazed by it. I still have the passion, the desire and the skills to do it. It’s just I can’t do it.

‘There are some countries in the world that want me, but the trouble is that particular journalist has gone to those countries. 

‘As soon as [they] find out that I’m operating in a particular country, they go and try and destroy my reputation there as well.

‘I’m not going to say anything at this stage, but a few countries have been trying to seduce me to operate there. 

‘So I’m hopefully going to be able to operate in some other countries.’

He also said the medical service had been exposed by the way it handled the Covid crisis when it attacked any doctor straying from the mainstream on vaccinations. 

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‘Covid has actually shown the public how conservative doctors are, and the system is,’ he said.

‘We were told we couldn’t say anything bad about the vaccine. It was mandated. You cannot say anything negative about the vaccine. And if you do, we’re gonna go gunning for you. 

‘And the public knew that. The medical governing bodies made it very clear. 

‘And I think the public stood back now. Oh, my God, really? I mean, what if there is something bad about the vaccine doctors aren’t allowed to say that? 

‘You saw those YouTube videos of American doctors who were saying, some negative things about the vaccine – they were absolutely persecuted.’

He also compared himself to controversial Canadian YouTube psychologist and mens’ rights activist Jordan Peterson and said they had both fallen victim to Tall Poppy Syndrome.

‘He’s going through the same thing as what I’m going through with the Canadian psychologist board now persecuting him,’ said Mr Teo. 

‘He goes, “Hang on, until I got a profile, no-one made any complaints about it. But now that I’ve got a profile as this famous celebrity psychologist, suddenly all these complaints start coming in.”

‘That’s that whole tall poppy thing where it’s not about if you’re a good psychologist or a bad psychologist, or whether you’re helping people or not, it’s all about, they just don’t like the profile.’

He said he had questioned himself over whether his patients were surviving because he was a great surgeon or just a great healer where he simply gave patients hope. 

‘Maybe they really believe that I’ve got healing hands and the ability to heal,’ he said.

‘If you’re having surgery by me because you think I’m some sort of God-like figure, some Messiah, then you know, so be it.

‘My patients are living longer because they’ve got Charlie Teo looking after them – whether it’s my surgical technique, or whether it’s the fact that I care for them and I make them feel important and I give them autonomy

‘It doesn’t really matter what it is – they’re living longer. Whether you believe in placebo or not, if it works, it works.’

The surgeon has come under fire for giving false hope to prospective patients and leaving some in a vegetative state while charging huge fees for surgery.

But Mr Teo defended the costs and the risks – and revealed he had secretly never charged half his patients.

‘I haven’t really wanted this to be known, but more than half my patients I don’t charge,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to say that publicly 20 years ago.

‘But I can tell you now, at the end of my career, that I didn’t charge police officers, fellow doctors, nurses, friends of friends and pensioners who couldn’t afford it.

‘My career has been based on doing the operation that needs to be done regardless of whether they can pay or not.’

But he admitted hospitals still demanded to paid.

He said the $100,000 fee it can cost for surgery was misleading.

‘The $100,000 is everything,’ he said. ‘The hospital bill, the assistant, the pathologists, radiologists – it’s not mine.

‘I’ve never not done an operation if someone hasn’t been able to pay. Of course, I want to get paid. And we would love to be paid upfront, but we don’t insist on it. 

‘The hospital insists on it before they let the patient in. That was interpreted as me saying, I’m not going to do your operation, unless you put the money in the bank. 

‘That is absolutely not the case.’