Doctor ‘seduced MS patient by saying sex would ease symptoms’

A MARRIED doctor convinced a patient to have sex with him by saying it would help relieve her multiple sclerosis, a tribunal heard.

Dr Kwame Somuah-Boateng, 43, allegedly told the woman intercourse would stimulate the muscles in her legs, saying: ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor.’

The doctor and his patient, who was in her 30s, would meet for sex in his hospital sleeping quarters, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal was told.

During their six-month affair, he vowed to marry her and have a son with her, even though he already had a wife and daughters in his native Ghana, it was claimed.

Describing how sex would benefit her, Somuah- Boateng is accused of claiming that intercourse would ‘help her pelvic floor muscles because they were weak’.

He said it would help her ‘to feel normal, feel like a woman’, the tribunal heard.

The fling ended when the woman, known as Patient A, discovered she might be pregnant.

The doctor allegedly told her his wife would kill the baby, it was said. When the woman thought she had miscarried, he allegedly tried to have sex with her again.

Patient A discovered the consultant urologist’s claims about sex and her condition were false when she went for a subsequent medical appointment for her MS, the tribunal heard.

Giving evidence, she said: ‘If I had known that what was happening to me was something Accused: Dr Somuah-Boateng dreadful… I would have had the police at my door.

‘He told me sex was good for my condition numerous times. Ini- tially I thought it was going to help me get my feelings back – I just wanted to be normal again.’

She added: ‘I thought he was the only one I could talk to about the condition because he was telling me he understood it.

‘At the time I thought the relationship was normal. He made me feel safe and he made me think that I couldn’t speak to family or

‘I feel like I was groomed’

friends about my condition and told me not to look things up on the internet.

‘I thought, “Wow, isn’t it great to have your own personal doctor looking after you?” Now I feel like I was groomed into a relationship.’

The affair began in July 2012 after Patient A was admitted to the A&E department at Croydon University Hospital in South Lon- don, complaining of being unable to feel her legs or feet properly.

Somuah-Boateng escorted her to a colleague for an MRI scan and when she found she had MS he began comforting and advising her about her condition.

Patient A told the hearing in Manchester: ‘ He explained what MS was. I was upset and confused and he comforted me and said it’s going to be all right.

‘A few days later he called me and explained who he was. I thought it was nice of him. He asked me how I was doing and how I was feeling, and he wanted to know if I had a boyfriend.’

She claimed that soon the doctor was calling her every day, but ‘I didn’t recognise myself as being in any danger’.

Patient A said: ‘ The first time that I had sex with Kwame he said to me, “Trust me, I’m a doctor – it will help you to get your sensitivity back.” I wanted to have sex with him because I thought it helped. I felt dependent on him. He began to tell me, “I love you, I want to marry you, I want to have children with you.”’

She added that at one point during their sexual relationship, ‘I was uncomfortable and I told him to stop and he didn’t at first – when I told him to again he did’.

The relationship broke down and in February 2013, the woman told Sumoah-Boateng she ‘wanted to end things’, but even then he allegedly pestered her for sex.

Somuah-Boetang, of Mitcham, South London, denies he initiated contact with Patient A, insisting she got in touch with him and asked him for the sexual relationship. He also denies separate charges of supplying her with prescription medication.

In 2015 he stood trial at Croydon Crown Court for attempted rape and sexual assault against the same woman, but was cleared.

The case continues. It is brought by the General Medical Council.