Premier gives $25,000 of taxpayer funds to Charlie Teo charity

Premier Dominic Perrottet has donated another $25,000 of taxpayers’ funds to the charity run by controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo,who has effectively been prevented from operating in Australia.

Donations from premiers Perrottet and Gladys Berejiklian,which now total $125,000 since 2018,were announced by radio 2GB’s breakfast presenter Ben Fordham,who is an ambassador for the Charlie Teo Foundation.

Guests paid $500 a head for a harbour cruise aboard “Rascal” with Charlie Teo before his fundraising event for the Charlie Teo Foundation.

Guests paid $500 a head for a harbour cruise aboard “Rascal” with Charlie Teo before his fundraising event for the Charlie Teo Foundation.Wolter Peeters

On Wednesday night Fordham was the MC for Teo’s “Bright Night” event at Doltone House in Pyrmont which attracted around 120 people,mainly former patients and their families. Before the event,a group of people paid $500 each for a spin around the harbour with the famous brain surgeon on board the super yacht “Rascal”.

“I am not the only one who believes in Teo,” Fordham told his listeners on Thursday morning. A $25,000 donation “arrived on the night from a man called Dominic Perrottet … on behalf of the people of NSW and I am sure that will have Charlie’s critics in a spin”.

A joint Sydney Morning Herald,The Age and 60 Minutes investigation recently revealed that Teo had charged some families extraordinary amounts of money for ultimately futile operations that catastrophically injured his patients.

In 2018,four-year-old Mikolaj Barman suffered terribly after Teo’s disastrous operation in Singapore. Two other neurosurgeons diagnosed the boy with an inoperable brain tumour known as a DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma).

Mikolaj Barman (centre) was diagnosed with an inoperable tumour – a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). He is pictured with his father,Prasanta,and his mother,Sangeeta.

Mikolaj Barman (centre) was diagnosed with an inoperable tumour – a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). He is pictured with his father,Prasanta,and his mother,Sangeeta.Supplied

Because of its location in the pons area of the brain,experts say it would be “incomprehensible” and “indefensible” for anyone to operate on this kind of tumour.

However,Teo performed the operation after telling the boy’s father Prasanta via email “there is a very high likelihood of cure if he[Teo] does the surgery before radiation”.

After the $80,000 operation,Mikolaj never walked or spoke again in the months before he died.

While denying Mikolaj had a DIPG,Teo admitted toA Current Affair’s Tracy Grimshaw that “my operation ruined him”.

“This is totally new to me. He never told us that something wrong happened during surgery and that led to his critical condition. I came to know this only now and that also from the TV,” Barman said.

Having seen Mikolaj’s post-operative scans,other specialists said it wasn’t a millimetre mistake,as Teo claimed. Instead,Teo had removed most of the pons,which links the brain to the spinal cord.

Since 2018,the premier’s discretionary fund has donated $25,000 annually to the Charlie Teo Foundation for “brain cancer research”. The fund had also supported other charitable organisations such as the Cancer Council NSW,the Salvation Army and the Miracle Babies Foundation,the premier’s spokesman said.

Controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo arriving at a fundraiser for his foundation with his partner Traci Griffiths.

Controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo arriving at a fundraiser for his foundation with his partner Traci Griffiths.Wolter Peeters

However,the premier’s office did not respond to questions about whether the ongoing annual donation remained appropriate given Teo’s Medical Council-enforced ban.

In 2021,the NSW Medical Council deemed Teo’s brain stem surgeries posed such a risk to the general public that Teo had restrictions placed on his ability to perform these operations.

In November 2021,Healthscope,which runs 41 private hospitals,withdrew Teo’s accreditation at Prince of Wales Private Hospital,where he has worked for years.

Since the joint investigation,the Health Care Complaints Commission has received further complaints about Teo’s surgeries.

In October,Teo was due to face a disciplinary hearing over two poor surgical outcomes,one of which was a DIPG. The hearing has been postponed until February.

Parliamentary disclosures also show that in August 2019 then-treasurer Perrottet had a meeting with Teo and his business partners over Teo’s plans for his medi-tourism hospital in Blacktown.

The premier’s office said Perrottet did not meet Teo in 2019,despite the meeting being recorded and publicly released in his diary disclosures. His office said Teo’s attendance was recorded as an “administrative error”.

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Kate McClymont is chief investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.

Alexandra Smith is the State Political Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

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