Dead patient’s wife testifies at Brych trial

Press, 9 December 1982, Page 7

Dead patient’s wife testifies at Brych trial

NZPA Los Angeles An Idaho woman testified this week that she was about to make a third payment to Vlastimil Milan. Brych for her late husband's cancer treatments two years ago when the authorities arrested Brych. Brych is on trial charged with grand theft and practising medicine without a licence in a 12-count criminal complaint lodged against him by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. In a day-long session in the witness-box, Mrs Doris Preston told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury how her husband, Mr Joseph Preston, died two months after beginning the treatment; how the treatment cost the family $U519,200, and how Brych

diagnosed where Mr Prestons tumour was when no other doctor was able to do so.

The witness said her husband’s cancer dated to 1975, and spread from the spine to the ribs, causing intense pain which chemotherapy and unconventional treatment failed to alleviate. Mrs Preston said she and her husband learned of Brych, an associate of the late orthopedist, Dr Richard O'Connor, through a Utah surgeon, Dr Robert Metcalf. In telephone conversations with Dr O’Connor, she was given assurances that Mr Preston’s cancer could be treated for $9600 a treatment.

Mrs Preston said she and her husband were not prepared to make a quick trip

to Los Angeles in early August, 1980, but did so because of Brych's sense of urgency. Brych had told them that there were only two openings for appointments in the next six months because 7000 patients were on a waiting list, she said. While undergoing Brych's treatment, her husband lost all his hair and failed to improve. Also, Brych would fill out prescriptions for her husband on pads which were presigned by Dr O’Connor, she said. In a conversation with Brych on October 10, 1980. Brych addvised her that her husband’s resurgence of pain could be blamed on withdrawal symptoms. Mrs Preston said her husband died six days later.