Sudan Doctors

SYDNEY-- Australian victims and their families have welcomed the conviction of the Indian-born surgeon once dubbed "Doctor Death", who Wednesday was awaiting sentence over the deaths of three patients.

Jayant Patel, 60, was found guilty by an Australian court on Tuesday of criminal negligence causing the deaths of three men during his time as a surgeon at Queensland's Bundaberg Base Hospital between 2003 and 2005.

He was also found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to a fourth man, Ian Vowles, after the marathon court case heard the surgeon had a "toxic ego" that drove him to operate needlessly and inexpertly on patients.

Patel, branded "Dr Death" by the media after concerns about his work first came to light, has denied all charges and is likely to appeal.

"I didn't expect to see a unanimous decision on all cases but I'm very happy," Vowles, who was left with permanent injuries after Patel removed his healthy bowel, told reporters late Tuesday.

Former patient Doris Hillier also welcomed the verdict and urged that Patel be handed the maximum sentence for manslaughter of life in jail.

"He's taken so many lives he has to pay with his own life... never to be released," she said.

Judy Kemp, whose 77-year-old husband Gerry Kemp bled to death after Patel operated on him, said she had doubted she would ever see the surgeon brought to justice.

"My only concern has been that he will go somewhere else and do the same thing, and I didn't want anyone else to going through what we went through," she told reporters outside the Queensland Supreme Court.

Patel arrived in Bundaberg in 2003 but by 2005 the overseas-trained doctor had left for the US following complaints. After two inquiries, a warrant was issued and he was brought back to Australia to face charges in July 2008.

During the trial, the prosecution argued Patel had acted like a "bad surgeon motivated by ego and suffering from lack of insight" and was criminally negligent in operating on Kemp, Mervyn Morris, 75, and James Phillips, 46. All three died.

The 14-week trial also heard that Patel was once heard to say: "Maybe I shouldn't be doing these operations." But the surgeon's lawyers said Patel had always acted in his patients' best interests and operated with their consent.

Patel, who has been remanded in custody, will be sentenced on Thursday. He faces another trial on counts of fraud and one of grievous bodily harm.

"Most people forget that over the two years that Patel was in the Bundaberg Base Hospital there were at least 87 deaths and he treated at least 1,500 people," state politician Rob Messenger told ABC.

"There are many, many families that would feel vindicated."