Despite the NSW Medical Board ruling he had psychiatric problems which "detrimentally affect his mental capacity to practice medicine'' more than a decade ago, he managed to continue treating women without detection in a devastating trail of botched operations and negligence.

"But what I can assure the women who are coming forward now is that we will support them in every way we possibly can.

"I am sorry that they have had such an awful, awful experience at the hands of somebody who was not fit to deliver a medical service."

THE New South Wales Government says it is sorry, but it can't yet explain why a doctor banned from obstetrics was able to continue performing operations which allegedy left many women mutilated. Dr Graeme Steven Reeves is alleged to have mutilated or sexually abused as many as 800 patients.

The NSW Medical Board ruled in 1997 that Graeme Stephen Reeves "suffers from personality and relations problems and depression that detrimentally affects his mental capacity to practise medicine".

NSW accused of 'Chopper Reeves' inaction Parliament was told yesterday that Mr Reeves was known within hospitals circles in the area as "Chopper Reeves", after standover man Mark "Chopper" Reed.

The Liberal Member for Bega, Andrew Constance, said he had been told of the nickname by the doctor's colleagues in the area at the time.

But Mr Constance said the doctor was cleared by the local health service, despite his colleagues' concerns and victims' complaints to the NSW Medical Board.