False cancer diagnosis doc who fleeced sick kids’ parents is struck off
Families were upset over diagnoses
A CHILDREN’S doctor has been struck off for falsely diagnosing kids with cancer to scare parents into paying for expensive private treatment. Dr Mina Chowdhury, 45, caused “undue alarm” to the parents of three young patients, one aged 15 months, by making the “unjustified” diagnoses so his company could cash in by arranging tests and scans, a medical tribunal found. Chowdhury, who worked as a fulltime consultant in paediatrics and neonatology at NHS Forth Valley, provided private treatment at his Meras Healthcare clinic in Glasgow. But the clinic made losses, despite “significant” potential income from third-party investigations and referrals for treatment – with patients charged a mark-up fee of up to three times the actual cost. Chowdhury gave false diagnoses without proper investigation and recommended “unnecessary and expensive” private tests and treatment.
He also steered parents away from free NHS treatment, failed to make referrals to NHS paediatricians and recorded false information in one patient’s records.
A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) tribunal found him guilty of misconduct in August and his fitness to practise impaired.
It said his actions were “financially motivated” and “dishonest”.
Parents previously told of their upset at receiving Chowdhury’s diagnoses during consultations between March and August 2017.
He told the parents of a 15-month-old girl, Patient C, that a lump attached to the bone in her leg was a “soft tissue sarcoma” and a second lump had developed.
Chowdhury urged them to see a doctor in London who could arrange an ultrasound scan, an MRI scan and biopsy in a couple of days.
But the parents spoke to an A&E doctor and an ultrasound scan revealed the lumps were likely fat necrosis.
Patient C was later discharged after her bloods tests came back as normal.
The child’s mother told the tribunal she and her husband had been “very upset”.
She was also “angry” after reading his consultation notes and realising they were a “total falsification”.
In another consultation with parents of a 30-monthold boy, Patient B, the doctor said a blood test result showed “high level of B cells”.
He went on to warn the boy’s mother it could mean blood cancer or lymphoma.
He also said he’d detected a heart murmur and falsely claimed there was nowhere here where an NHS echocardiogram, a heart scan, could be performed on children.
Chowdhury suggested “disproportionately expensive” private treatment in London costing £10,000 and failed to refer them to an NHS paediatric oncology service.
He told the mother of a third patient, a teenage girl, Patient A: “We are now going to have a serious conversation, the kind that all parents dread. We are going to talk about the ‘C’ word.”
Chowdhury claimed he’d found a lump in her daughter’s stomach and it “could spread if left untreated”.
The mother was advised to travel to London’s with her daughter for a MRI scan.
Chowdhury also advised her to arrange urgent blood tests, costing £3245 but “discounted” to £1947.
Chowdhury disputed the parents’ version of events.
We’re going to talk about what parents dread... the ‘C’ word DR MINA CHOWDHURY TO PARENTS OF TEEN GIRL