Premier wants Brych to visit Queensland

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 18

Premier wants Brych to visit Queensland

By

STUART McMILLAN

of ‘"The Press’’

The Premier of Queensland (Mr Joh Bjelke-Petersen) wants the cancer therapist. Milan Brych, to visit Queensland and has threatened “to put the skids under” the Federal Minister of Immigration (Mr MacKellar) who will not let Mr Brych in. Mr Brych, who treated patients at Auckland hospital for cancer until the Medical Council discovered that he was not a doctor, has shifted to the Cook Islands, where for a not inconsiderable sum he will treat people for cancel (according to some New Zealand doctors, whether they have cancer or not). Mr Brych is able to practise medicine in the Cook Islands although he was deregistered in New Zea’and as a doctor. The former Cook Islands Minister of Health, Dr Joe Williams, allowed him to be registered there, a decision in which the Premier of the Cook Islands (Sir Al-

bert Henry) at least concurred. On A.B.C. radio, Mr BjelkePetersen said that he had urged Mr MacKellar to allow Mr Brych in. He said that many other people of a “verv much more doubtful repute” had been allowed to enter the country. "Mr MacKellar said that Mr Brych could enter provided he did not talk about cancer,” Mr Bjelke-Petersen said. “I said to the Minister: ‘Gee, I’ll put the skids under you one of these days if you don’t be fair and reasonable about it’.” Mr Bjelke-Petersen said that doctors from Queensland and Melbourne, and cancer sufferers, unable to pay to go to. Mr Brych’s headquarters for treatment, had pleaded with him to allow Mr Brych in. He said that for Mr MacKellar to allow Mr Brych in provided that he did not talk about cancer was “an absurd attitude to adopt.”

Mr Bjelke-Petersen thought Mr Brych should have the opportunity to convince the medical profession that his methods were effective. The “Sydney Morning Herald” reported that Mr BjelkePetersen’s views were not shared by his Health Minister (Dr Edwards) who would be unhappy to see Mr Brvch in Australia. “I was unaware of the Premier’s feelings.” said Dr Edwards. "Mr Brych was deregistered in New Zealand and as far as we are concerned he would not be regarded as a doctor in this state. “1 am suspicious of someone who charges a patient §lO,OOO or 515.000 for treatment and won’t tell people what the treatment is.” After the Medical Council of New Zealand belatedly discovered that Mr Brych was not medically qualified, it informed all the Pacific countries of this fact. Both

New Zealand and Australia refused to send blood for transfusion to Mr Brych’s establishment in the Cook Islands. Many doctors would have liked to have seen further action taken against Mr Brych, but there the whole matter ran into questions of foreign policy. The Cook Islands are regarded by New Zealand as autonomous and New Zealand has no jurisdiction there. Government officials did not fancy seeing New Zealand charged with the practices of colonialism. So all that was done was to take precautions to see that none of the $6 million which New Zealand gives the Cooks in aid each year found its way into Mr Brych’s establishment. It is not the first time that Mr Brych has run into trouble about entry to Australia. In May last year a New South Wales Liberal Senator, Mr Peter Baume, opposed Mr Brych’s entry to Australia and called him a “charlatan, a liar, and a quack.”