Medic who molested his patient could be thrown out of UK
A DOCTOR yesterday faced being thrown out of Britain after being found guilty of repeatedly groping a patient’s breasts.
Syed Bukhari – who moved from Pakistan to work in the NHS – molested the 28-yearold woman twice in two days.
She was being treated for chest pains and palpitations when the 35-year-old ‘targeted’ her while carrying out his rounds.
The unnamed patient was left embarrassed and distressed by the incidents at Wishaw General Hospital in Lanarkshire.
Bukhari also gave her his email address and told her: ‘We’ll be friends for ever.’ But the patient said: ‘I felt very uncomfortable and nervous. I was quite tearful and upset. You put your trust in a doctor.’
Bukhari, who arrived in Britain with his college student wife in 2010, was reported to police.
After being cleared at a criminal trial he was ordered to face a misconduct tribunal by the General Medical Council. At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester he was found guilty of all charges and now faces being struck off.
The hearing was told the loss of his medical career would mean he could be deported to his native Pakistan by the Home Office.
The incidents occurred in July 2013 when the woman, known as Patient A, had been admitted to the casualty department.
She was in bed wearing pyjamas when Bukhari – who had been a doctor at the hospital for 14 months – closed the curtains around her to examine her.
Patient A said: ‘Dr Bukhari asked me to sit back then proceeded to lift up my pyjama top exposing my breasts.
‘He then moved his hands from the centre of my chest and proceeded to cup both my breasts with his hands and moved his hands in a circular motion.
‘It felt as though Dr Bukhari was massaging them. He then pulled the blanket back, which had been covering my bottom half, and placed his hands on my shins and underneath my calves and asked me whether it was sore here.
‘I informed him that there was no pain in my legs. He moved both his hands up my legs again, asking whether there was any pain.
‘Dr Bukhari moved his hands to the top of my thighs, inside my pyjama shorts.’ She said he visited her again the same day and gave her his email address so that she ‘could keep in contact with him’.
Patient A said: ‘I was shocked by this as I have never been given an email address by a doctor before.’
The next day the woman was waiting to see a heart specialist when Bukhari arrived at her bedfrom
‘I was tearful and upset’ ‘You put your trust in a doctor’
side, asked her why she had not been discharged and closed the curtain around her bed again.
She said he ‘massaged’ her neck, ‘examined’ her breasts and pressed her legs, again cupped her breasts and asked for her email, saying: ‘We’ll be friends for ever.’ A ward nurse who had been concerned about Bukhari’s conduct spoke to Patient A, who was so upset it took 40 minutes of conversation to ‘draw it out of her’.
Following the allegation Bukhari, Inverness, was suspended but later got a job with NHS Highland after wrongly saying the allegations had been resolved.
At the hearing, he denied wrongdoing and said that in Pakistan it was common for doctors to give email addresses to patients.
He claimed he felt no sexual attraction towards the woman.
But panel chairman Paul Curtis said: ‘You had undertaken inappropriate examinations of Patient A over the course of two days and these were sexually motivated, and you attempted to pursue a sexual relationship with Patient A by asking for her email address.’
A decision on whether or not to strike Bukhari off the medical register will be taken later.
John White, NHS Lanarkshire deputy director of human resources, said: ‘We take allegations of misconduct very seriously. All allegations are fully investigated and dealt with in accordance with our policies.’