'Miracle' cancer Doctor scamming the terminally ill | 60 Minutes Australia

it's hard to comprehend how anyone could be so greedy or so cruel dr alfred sartori claims he can cure terminal cancer it isn't true of course but what makes dr sartori scam truly despicable is that he doesn't just empty out his victim's bank accounts the last days of life are painful hell for his patients as they're dosed up on powerful chemicals that poison their systems his treatment has already failed to save 24 australians and yet it seems nothing can be done to stop him [Music] he was the doctor of last resort the doctor who promised australian cancer patients a miracle how do you feel about dr satori i think he's a madman an absolute madman but dr hilford sartori's alternative cancer treatment saved no one absolutely horrible to think that we've taken sander on this journey of hope and to turn down that there's probably never any real hope there at all [Music] those hopes were shattered over two horrendous weeks behind the closed doors of this suburban perth home that would end with the deaths of five people and spark a coronal inquest into dr sartori and his treatment you are preying on incredibly ill people who are desperately looking for something and you haven't been able to give them anything you gave them death that's true i said well anyway i believe for nearly 30 years dr sartori an austrian trained gp has pushed the benefits of his cesium treatment for cancer to you patients were charged up to 40 000 for his chemical cocktail which includes cesium chloride ozone lautrial also known as b17 and an industrial solvent called dmso all prohibited substances in australia without medical exemptions don't you tell them you can cure it no the word i don't ever use the word cure recover completely if you don't use the word cure recover 100 recovery permanent recovery don't you use those words recovery from from the present condition yes how many patients have been cured by your treatments um i really cannot say you say ten thousand uh yeah is my best estimate i'm not yet seen one um yeah and there's 10 000 patients say yeah the treatment's fantastic it's saved my life why aren't they going forward they they are telling it in the underground it's just not true and you know it okay well [Music] it was that promise of a cure that drew 69 year old pia bosso to dr sartori six years ago her niece sandra hoffman says pia was told the treatment would destroy the cancerous tumors in her thyroid this was going to be a cure cure there were the words that she used they were the words that other people they told me as well that this treatment has helped other people that they've seen it with their own eyes fifty-three-year-old sandra mccarty was also promised the treatment would combat her breast cancer her husband jared and daughters natalie and renee were encouraged by the apparent evidence that dr sartori offered [Music] when we looked into this program it clearly showed that there was a cutting edge treatment available through a leading international cancer specialist it seems legitimate enough to have a crack we were virtually told that it was a fantastic miracle cure that the medical the pharmaceutical companies didn't want you to know about because it would put them out of business we were told that it wasn't authorised and that we would have to be very quiet about it you were not to let on no no the concoction of chemicals as i understand that treated the australian patients were made up of ingredients that are not legally able to be obtained in australia no no they are legally updated in australia these are paint strippers solvents these are yeah sure they can use it for that too but they're every veterinarian and every athlete in in the united states uses it but you're not supposed to use it in humans you every athlete athletes are not humans for you sandra mccarty and pia bosso were among a group of patients who in 2005 made a pilgrimage to perth for the cesium treatment they expected a hospital standard clinic supervised by an australian doctor and nurses what did you walk into it was just a home basically it was a living room with ivs and buckets to catch vomit and a few portable toilets that we then would need to this was no clinic no no within a fortnight sandra and pierre were dead they were among four patients to die at the house over four consecutive days a fifth died just over a month later when did you decide that this was not going to be a good outcome i think probably the second last day i thought things had gone too far and then i think the treatment the last day was very very hard for sandra i could tell that she was really trying really hard to accept the horrible things that were happening to her body and she said nat they're killing me they're killing me nat [Music] it's hard to believe that what went on inside this house could happen in the 21st century cancer sufferers were subjected to what was nothing short of torture they were plied with dangerous chemicals that caused severe vomiting and diarrhea some would be so sick they'd slip into unconsciousness in the end as one nurse working here told the coroner the treatment room resembled a war zone innocent vulnerable trusting people it seems were treated as little more than human guinea pigs it was a house filled with with very very sick people and lot of moaning or crying and it was just horrible the treatment was overseen by two nurses one of them simone fazee who was unregistered in western australia but dr sartori was nowhere to be seen unbeknown to his patients he was banned from entering australia he's also been jailed three times twice in america and once in thailand in relation to his treatments do you tell every patient i have been jailed for incompetence and i'm not licensed do you tell them that yeah absolutely absolutely there's no patient that that doesn't know that dr satori told me that he he said absolutely every patient knew of his criminal history not one little bit of it did we know you lied about your criminal history to try and get licensed in australia honesty isn't one of your big assets is it as i said it made many mistakes in the absence of dr sartori the patients placed their faith in perth gp dr alexandra boyd who owned and lived in the house where they were treated how often would you see the patients i think i saw most of them at least two three times during the time of the treatment you didn't see them daily at all no you you had this they knew that right from the beginning that i wouldn't be seeing them daily liz i don't know whether they did yes they did they were well aware that i was had a very busy schedule and that i would not be overseeing their treatment dr boyd was participating in this participated and was participating and knew she was going to be participating all along it would be hard for her to argue that she didn't really know what was going on i would have thought would have thought yes naturally she knew what was happening i mean that they were she knew naturally that they were treated with cesium dr boyd's name is on indemnity documents signed by some patients she was paid more than thirty eight thousand dollars yet this experienced doctor claimed she left the care of these very ill patients to dr satori's unregistered nurse simone phasey you had no idea of the the compounds the chemicals that were being intravenously fed into the patients did you not say to any of these nurses what the hell is going on what is in that stuff no because simone told me she had done this over several years with dr satori knew exactly what was going to happen you were in a position to say enough because it couldn't be done without you no that's not true they still would have continued on whether i was there or not but it was happening in your house the day before she died sandra mccarty was taken to fremantle hospital but even then dr sartori's people concealed the truth about what had been going on simone faisy who was the nurse she introduced herself as simone watson albright and my mum's private nurse from victoria and she told me to say that if they ask who the doctor is don't say dr sartori but she asked me to call him dr contreras or someone from from mexico so she you know there was they were jumping ship they were jumping ship and they took they took them to different hospitals in over perth so that presumably they wouldn't be found out so their intentions their responsibilities is questionable highly questionable the ridiculousness is that is that they still continue treatment with my auntie and others after people had died so they still continued and they weren't told at no stage when you were getting messages when you were talking to your nurses who were treating these patients in perth did you think to yourself i'm killing them i need to stop oh no absolutely not nausea diarrhea sometimes also one may think this is uncomfortable without any doubt but it's not the serious side effects as soon as this is over it is over there's nothing remaining in the body do you believe these patients suffered unnecessarily because of this treatment looking back they most probably did do you believe the treatment may have contributed to the deaths of some of these patients no i think when i look back at what these patients had i think in most cases it was just the cancer that killed them all of them suddenly died within days of each other from their cancer it's quite possible are you serious yes [Music] australian authorities believe they know of 25 patients who receive dr sartori's treatment 24 have died and the 25th still has cancer [Music] dr sartori is now back in austria and still peddling his wares on the internet dr satori can you not say that you're out of step with everybody else and you think everybody else is wrong and you're right no i it has nothing to do with me and it's i guess i don't get why you don't understand why other doctors just think you are crackers they do [Music] for the families it's been a harrowing journey they're still dealing with the pain of losing someone they loved too soon and anger knowing that none of this should have happened from a personal perspective i have a lot of guilt because i wasn't in perth and i didn't get to say goodbye so i never got to tell her i love her again i don't know that i'll ever forgive myself for that she was a gorgeous private dignified lady and for her death to be such a circus is that's disloyal to her memory yeah she was robbed of that dignity wasn't she yeah that's that's that's what should never happened it's been a hard part really really hard these are strong people i think that wanted to live and that were prepared to endure a lot of pain no one is standing up and saying that there was anything wrong with your treatment it's just extremely sad and that's i think somebody needs to be made accountable hello i'm alison langdon thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes australia make sure 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Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 269,722

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Ellen Fanning, Peter Overton, Karl Stefanovic, Ray Martin, Peter Stefanovic, Gerald Stone, Sarah Abo, Dr Hellfried Sartori, cancer, cure, scam, prey, doctor, fake, caesium chloride, poison, jail, arrested, bad, hospital, death, curing cancer, miracle, scammer, lies, medical, stan

Id: UKHXqQ4zoDY

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021