‘DO YOU SWALLOW?’
What doctor asked a nurse before slapping her on arse, tribunal hears
A DOCTOR smacked a trainee nurse’s bottom and grabbed another by her private parts on a hospital A&E unit, a tribunal heard.
Dr Srikishen Parthasarathy, 44, bent down and cupped the woman’s private parts in his hands as she was squatting to look at medical documents, it was claimed.
He also repeatedly grabbed her mobile phone out of her pocket to check if she had any “rude pictures”, it was said at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester.
The other nursing assistant claimed the doctor tried to grab her breasts, slapped her on the bottom and asked: “Do you swallow?”
The first woman, known as Colleague A, later took six months off work from Conquest Hospital in Hastings, East Sussex.
Arrogant
She finally reported Parthasarathy to her bosses after finding out the other assistant, Colleague B, claimed similar experiences.
Colleague A told the hearing: “I got on with him in a work setting, but I did find him personally to be boorish and arrogant. He acted like a prat sometimes.”
The alleged encounters took place between September 2013 and May 2016, beginning shortly after the consultant – originally from Bangalore, India – was assigned to work at the hospital.
Colleague A, who is in her forties, told the tribunal: “I didn’t say anything, I was in shock.
“After I finished what I was doing I left straight away, I just wanted to get out of there.
“I didn’t want to be around him. It was highly inappropriate.
“He often tried to get my phone out of my pocket. He always asked if I had rude pictures.”
Parthasarathy, from Hove, East Sussex, denies sexually motivated misconduct and refutes claims of improper touching.
The hearing continues.