Patients of bogus doctor set for ‘huge payouts’
THE NHS could face millions of pounds in claims from patients seen by bogus doctor Zholia Alemi – as it emerged the medical regulator had a string of chances to stop her.
The conwoman practised as a psychiatrist for 22 years and saw thousands of patients at 22 NHS trusts in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, plus several private hospitals.
The 60-year-old faces jail after using a fake degree certificate to hoodwink the General Medical Council (GMC) into putting her on the medical register, then fraudulently claiming £1.3million in wages.
A lawyer who has already made successful claims for former patients believes anyone seen by Alemi, pictured, could have a case for compensation.
Greg Whyte, a partner at law firm Jones Whyte, said former patients would simply need to establish that Alemi’s treatment had been different from what a competent professional would have provided.
He said: ‘Our cases involved five-figure sums but there may be people for whom she’s prescribed the wrong medication and it’s significantly changed their lives, in which case you’d be looking at six-figure sums. The compensation claims could run into millions of pounds.’
Mr Whyte, who has achieved settlements against health trusts in eight cases so far, added: ‘It’s such a bang to rights case, such an obvious breach of trust and such obvious negligence.
‘You’re fairly safe to say anyone who has had treatment by this person, who is not a doctor and did not know what she was talking about, has been negatively affected.’
Alemi was only exposed as a fraud in 2018 after being convicted of faking the will of retired Bank of England worker Gillian Belham, then 84, who she had befriended at a dementia clinic in Cumbria. She was jailed for five years.
It has emerged the GMC received nine complaints against Alemi and she was sacked from two jobs. Seven complaints predate the will fraud and the first was made in 1998.
Meanwhile, former colleague Claire Wilkinson, who worked with Alemi at a private hospital in Plymouth, Devon, said: ‘She never seemed to have a clue what she was doing.’