← Sick to Death
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- [00:00]
A
Katie I'm Katie Page, CEO of Harvey Norman. Since 2018, Harvey Norman has been a key partner in the Australians investigative podcasts such as Sick to Bronwyn, Shandy's Story, the Teacher's Pet and the Night Driver. Harvey Norman are proud sponsors of the Australians podcast investigations and their award winning journalism.
- [00:27]
B
From the Australian here's what's on the front I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, March 13, 2026. Don't look down your nose at patriotism. That's the blunt message to labor from one of its own stars, South Australian Premier Peter Malinowskas. He's seeking re election at the March 21 state election where One Nation is polling strongly and Malinowskis says Labor must respect voters with fears about housing and immigration. Two years, 500 gigabytes of audio and more than 200 voice actors the Australian's podcast adaptation of Hedley Thomas best selling book Sick to Death is nearing its conclusion. It's the story of the havoc wrought on the Queensland medical system by the incompetent surgeon Jayant Patel 20 years ago. And there's still more to come. Today, Headley and our production team get together to discuss this epic project and why it still resonates in 2026. The Australian's national chief correspondent, Headley Thomas, was walking among the mango trees at his Brisbane home when I called him to ask what he was working on. It was late 2022 and Headley had taken some leave to work on his book about his blockbuster investigation, the Teacher's Pet. Hedley suggested we bring to audio one of his earlier books, Sick to Death. Well, we've published 16 whopping episodes so far, with two more bonus episodes to come. Today, Headley and I are sitting down with our audio lead Jasper Leek, senior producer Kristin Amyot, and producer Karina Berger to talk about this huge undertaking. I should know by now to expect that when Hedley Thomas calls up with an idea that he says is going to be quite simple, that it's actually not going to be anything of the sort. He said that about Shandy's story, which turned into an epic multi season investigative podcast. And he said the same thing about Sick to Death. It's a bit of a hybrid. It's an audiobook with a full cast acting out all of the 200 plus roles in this book. But it's also true to the traditions of true crime podcasting. We follow a journalist unravelling the truth about a big scandal. In this case, Headley's reporting on the activities of Dr. Jayant Patel, a surgeon who tricked his way through Queensland Health in the beginning of the 21st century. Headley I think this would have been a smaller undertaking if we'd done what a lot of audiobooks do, which is just, have you read the whole thing? Why did you want this to be a full cast production?
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A
Have you tried to do an Indian accent?
- [03:22]
B
Claire no, I would never do anything like that.
- [03:25]
A
All jokes aside, it would have been very challenging and I don't think very satisfying for listeners to have heard just my voice droning on hour after hour trying to voice act for the nurses and doctors and administrators and of course for Dr. Patel and other overseas trained doctors, the judges and victims, and nurse Tony Hoffman. I mean, there were so many people who were part of this. And I think that while incredibly ambitious by us to involve I don't know how many voice actors were there more than 100? More than 200.
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C
I think that if we consult the spreadsheet that was made very early in the piece, there's definitely more than 200 lines in that spreadsheet. There is our wonderful colleagues here at the Australian who have been pulled off the newsroom floor more than once to come and do voice acting for us. My partner, Jasper's partner, Claire's kids, everybody who fit the bill for one of those characters appears in this series.
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B
One of My Children actually got sacked from her role in this production because of Headley's incredibly high, I would say, potentially unreasonable standards.
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D
I know that details matter to Headley and having worked on a couple of investigations with him now, and I think this particular story is so epic it deserved an epic treatment in podcast form as well.
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B
I did devour the book, but as always, my much more meticulous and forensic partner in crime, Kristen Amiet, who's the producer of the Front and also the producer of this podcast, digested the book with all of her intellect and attention and she was desperate to find out what had happened at the Curry Bazaar. What was going on with that?
- [05:12]
C
Kristin this is something that our listeners will have heard by this point, that when I was going through the book, and I think I was actually lulled into that, that same sense of security about this project as Headley when he first pitched it, because we had just come off the back of, as Headley said, the teacher's pet, we'd done two inquiries off the back of Shandy's Story, Hedley's other investigative podcast, we had been probably for the better part of two years at the mercy of legal proceedings, where the work is happening in the background of a very dense and very important legal proceeding. So I looked at it, this 400 page PDF and went, when have we ever had the full story there to just record? And then when I got to the point of sitting down to read it, I thought, well, the first thing I've got to do is extract the voice acting. And so I started doing that and I was pulling all of these lines out. Every time I came across a new character or a new line for somebody who I'd already met in the past, I'd put it into this gigantic spreadsheet that now barely even loads because there are so many lines and characters in it. But I kept seeing these references to some sort of incident that happened at the Kari Bazaar. And I was saying to you guys, I'm not getting to this fast enough. I have to know what happened at the Kari Bazaar. And it's really. It doesn't appear until quite late in the series, but it is, it's quite scandalous when it does appear. I did think it was actually a really great encapsulation of the failures of the Queensland health bureaucracy in this story and elsewhere, because that when whistleblowers like Tony Hoffman were saying, trying to raise their concerns with the higher ups with hospital administrators, there was nobody to be found. Or she was told repeatedly, everything's ok, don't worry about it. You just go back to being a nurse. And then as soon as they looked bad or as soon as they had an opportunity to make the people who had exposed this scandal look bad, all of a sudden affidavits and statements were coming from every direction.
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B
Karina Burge is an eminent lawyer in her own right and now she's putting her toe into the murky world of journalism. She's working with Headley and us as a producer. Now, Corinna, you had skin in this particular game too. You happened to be an expert in overseas trained doctors. How did that happen?
- [07:36]
E
Yeah, I did, Claire. It's a funny story. Back in 2005, I was trying to wrap up my law degree and get an honours degree at the same time and my supervisor desperately wanted me to do a thesis on pharmaceutical pricing. And I couldn't think of anything worse than spending six months of my life on that topic. So I politely declined and said, no, I need something with more of a human element. And he said, oh, there's this situation unfolding in Queensland involving an overseas trained doctor and how about you examine the regulation of Those doctors using Dr. Patel as a case study? And so that was how I spent half of 2005 researching and closely following Hedley's articles. And I remember getting so frustrated towards the end because I had to turn in my paper and Hedley just kept on posting articles day after day, which necessitated me updating everything day after day. And I just had to draw a line in the sand at one point and think, I'm done. But yeah, it's really strange now, 20 years later to be working with Headley and to have had a small amount of involvement in the Sick to Death
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A
podcast series, but we didn't have any contact then. In fact, we didn't have any contact at all until 2024 when you wrote to us saying, I love podcasts. Can I help in some way?
- [08:59]
E
Yeah, that's right. And I did not think it would end up involving Dr. Death and Sick to Death. Not at all.
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B
What's it been like stepping into this story? And you, along with Kristen and our reporter Sarah Elks, have been writing some of the stories that have been accompanying the rollout of this show, Sick to Death. What's it been like participating and observing this story now from a journalistic point of view?
- [09:21]
E
Yeah, it's been a different process because obviously now my role is more about storytelling and less about legal analysis. But the legal issues are still really relevant and Hedley and I have been working very closely on those over the last few days to prepare the final episode or two of the podcast. But I suppose the storytelling function is a different one to critically analyzing the law and critically analyzing all the regulation of the doctors. And there's more of a human element. I've been speaking with people like Tony Hoffman, which is just amazing given I was writing about her 20 years ago. To actually have a phone call with her and get a better sense of who she is as a person has just been incredible. But of course now what we know 20 years on is the effect that the whistleblowing has really had on her and her life. And I found that really upsetting, to be honest.
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B
Coming up, why this shocking story is more relevant than ever in 2026. While I've got you, I wanted to let you know you can listen to every episode of Sick to Death and all the Australians award winning podcast for free this weekend that includes subscriber only bonus episodes and new episodes of Stick to Death. Plus you can experience all the Australian's journalism for free across our website and app. Check us out@TheAustralian.com au and we'll be back after the break.
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F
This podcast is made possible by Subscribers to the Australian and our principal sponsor, Harvey Norman. Since late 2017, when I started pursuing Chris Dawson for the 1982 murder of his wife, Lynn, Harvey Norman has been a loyal backer. It began with the Teacher's Pet, and Harvey Norman and its CEO Katie Page's support has continued for over eight years. I'm proud to have had their backing on all of mine and the Australians investigative podcasts. The Night Driver, Shandy's Story, Shandy's Legacy, the Teacher's Trial, the Teacher's Accuser, Bronwyn, and most recently, the Sick to Death Podcast. For more information on this podcast, go to the australian.com.
- [11:50]
B
Jasper this was a truly epic production. You and I have talked on the front before about podcasting and audio as a very human medium and why we believe, without any self interest at all, that audiences want to hear human voices, human stories. This is a very human story. What's been your kind of reflection on this even as you were going through the ordeal of making this massive show, which is like conducting a symphony on what the story's actually about, what it means?
- [12:20]
D
Well, I think to make the comparison with a conductor who's standing up there in front of a symphony, the point is to be up there immersing yourself in the music. It's not to be worried about what the second violin's playing or if the viola player's gonna play the melody in tune or something. And so I think, of course, there are a lot of moving parts with a project like this, and from a technical point of view, it's ambitious, but it would be a missed opportunity to get too bogged down in that without really appreciating the story and kind of living in it in a way. And there were so many things I reflected on working on this podcast. I mean, one of them was I would just hate to do the wrong thing and find myself in Headley Thomas's crosshairs. I mean, I also wondered whether Hedley had ever written anything that hadn't resulted in a royal commission or maybe the sort of key figure ending up behind bars. But I think. I think that is a testament to the writing and the attention to detail and how it was such a fantastic world to live in for the couple of years that I've been working on this show. And there's so many incredible aspects to the story. There's so many aspects of the storytelling that I appreciate, and the whole thing is driven by such a fascinating cast of characters.
- [13:46]
B
Chrissie, you're a podcast connoisseur. You review podcasts you're an expert, you listen to more of them than anyone I know. And of course you make podcasts here with us. What was your sense of this as just in terms of pure story and what it meant?
- [14:01]
C
It was actually, in my probably very unique experience, a full circle moment again, through the lens of Headley's reporting that was done in 2005, 2006, and the work that we had just done, particularly on the two commissions of inquiry into Queensland's fraught DNA lab and all of the issues that that were going on there and still are to some degree. You could have taken either of those stories, which are very different in their own right, and interchanged the problems with the bureaucracy, the problems with secrecy, the problems with losing sight of what this is all for, which is for Queenslanders, for people who are unwell, who need help, for victims of crime. So it's a pretty amazing view, not only of Headley's reporting on health in Queensland and his obvious drive to deliver public interest journalism for Queenslanders, but it's also a cautionary tale for all of us. It's not a world that I would want to find myself in, certainly, and I think the more aware we can make people of it, 20 years down the track, then we're all better for it.
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B
Headley, something I've learned about you is that you never let a story go for good and bad. Sometimes I wish you would allow us to wrap up season 24 of whatever show it is that we're working on. But you are tenacious like no one else. Do you feel as though the story of Jayant Patel is done now?
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A
The story of Dr. Patel is going to be repeated over and over again, but with different people, different doctors, different health systems. And that's because systems improved for a while after a catastrophe like the one we had in 2005 and the lessons that came out of the subsequent commission of inquiry and so on. But then the bureaucracies and the politicians just revert back to what they did very badly, what they did wickedly, that led to the catastrophe in the first place. And that's why this story is so important again now, 20, 21 years later, to remind people, whether they're the doctors, nurses, patients and journalists, that this happens. And that just because this is two decades old doesn't mean it won't happen again. It will happen again. There will be, across Australia now, unqualified, incompetent and even fraudulent practitioners. And we have to be on the alert and we have to demand higher standards, because if we Don't. And that goes for reporters as well, who are questioning systems and bureaucrats. The norm will continue. For me, reading my book again and reading it into a microphone as the narrator, it was a really good experience. I had forgotten so much of what went on. And I think that because the story also is interwoven with events in the newsroom that I worked in at the time, it's intermingled with stories about my family and professional and personal friends. It's a really significant trip down memory lane too. And it was very touching and moving at times, and particularly in 2005, as right near the pointy end of the health inquiry and all of the events that we were reporting on so carefully and closely back then. And my own mum, Diana, became very sick and was in a public hospital on the Gold coast. And I was feeling quite guilty that I hadn't been spending nearly as much time with her as I should have. And that was partly because of, well, significantly because of the commitments to the this case and this story. And we had young children at the time as well. And Mum died right at the time of the release of the final report in late October 2005. She died in hospital. And, you know, I understood in a very personal way how shattering a sudden and unexplained death in a public hospital setting can be. It brought it all home. Far too personally, I think it reinforces
- [18:37]
B
the role of a journalist. When people are themselves in the middle of grief, they're not in the right place to be pursuing answers or pursuing justice and their judgment might be clouded. That's the role that we as journalists play, to come in and be dispassionate and be dogged in the way that you were Headley. It's been a wonderful adventure. So thank you guys and we'll just look out for Headley's next Big idea
- [19:04]
C
after a long and well deserved break.
- [19:08]
A
Thank you again for making it happen. This book, although by Australian Standards in 2007 was a best seller, the numbers of sales are minuscule compared with the listens and the interest from the public who follow us now and want to listen to our podcasts. And therefore taking a very powerful and important case, a case study of a Sick health system, and turning that into an audio production 20 years later so that it's heard for the first time by many, many people, millions of people, it will end up being ultimately over months and years. That's something, you know, that is really important. Maybe 15 minutes before we started recording for this conversation, I finished listening to episode 16, the last one in the series that's based on the book. And I got to the end, I just thought, oh my God, that was just such an achievement by you all. And you in particular, Jasper, having pulled together so much material, done thousands of edits, and I know Kristen and Steph wrangled a huge number of voice actors. I was really moved and I just wanted to thank you all because I think you've done a stellar job. It was so much bigger than I thought it would be when Clare and I first talked about it. And now we're pretty much there, we're done.
- [20:44]
D
It's really lovely to hear. I mean, it's funny to think that we ever thought that this would be anything other than an enormous amount of work. You know, it's turning a 350 page plus book into a podcast. I think when I first heard about it, I, I wasn't one of the people who thought, oh, this should be easy enough. I panicked actually. But I agree, if it feels like a really huge achievement to get to the finish line, I think from the very beginning it was a very ambitious undertaking. And so to have landed here is something to be proud of for all of us.
- [21:20]
B
Yeah, and we've got 250 unemployed voice actors ready to go and Jasper's available to help. Thanks everyone. Sick to Death is live now, wherever you listen. Our team on the show also included Stephanie Coombs, Lia Tsamoglu, Slade Gibson, Sarah Elks, Neil Sutherland and many more. Normally we part publish episodes early for our subscribers and this weekend, March 14 and 15 new visitors to theaustralian.comau can listen to every episode for free along with all our journalism. It's open house at the Australian and we'd love you to come and sample all our reporting from politics and crime to entertainment and culture. Check us out@TheAustralian.com.
- [22:11]
F
This podcast is made possible by subscribers to the Australian and our principal sponsor, Harvey Norman. Harvey Norman has provided unwavering support for my investigative podcast since 2018. For more information on this podcast and on our entire investigative catalog, go to theaustralian.com au.