General

Doctor banned for life for touching female colleagues inappropriately

Published

May 6, 2019

A medical consultant sacked in the United Kingdom for inappropriately touching five of his female colleagues has been banned from practising medicine for life.

According to DalyMail, Dr Palaniappan Saravanan was working at Wirral University Teaching Hospital in Birkenhead, in Merseyside, England, when he inappropriately touched five female doctors between November 2014 and February 2017.

One victim said she ‘felt sick’ after the cardiologist touched her bottom while she carried out a scan of a patient’s chest.

He was sacked in 2018 but has been banned from practising medicine in the UK after a hearing of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester.

The hearing was told there was an ‘element of grooming’ in the doctor’s behaviour and he only targeted junior doctors – staying away from senior colleagues.

It was told the medic made sexual comments towards one junior doctor, telling her she ‘looked stunning’ dressed in black and that she had a ‘very beautiful’ ID picture.

He also stroked the knees, thighs, backs and bottoms of some of his victims, often while they treated patients and were unable to say anything about it.

In a statement read at the hearing, one of his victims described the incident that happened while she scanned a patient’s chest.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said:

‘The patient was considerably larger and I felt I would struggle to reach across to the left side of their chest.

“Dr Saravanan told me to kneel on the patient’s bed. At this point, I voiced my concerns about this and they were disregarded.

‘The entire time I [was knelt and carrying out the scan], Dr Saravanan had his hand on my bottom. He held my left buttock cheek in his left hand.

“I was mortified and did not know what to do. I never thought I would be in such a compromising position in the workplace.

“I felt sick and wanted this to be over as soon as possible.”

The hearing also heard a statement from another of his victims, who said:

“He is a touchy feely person. He would always stand quite close.

“It felt like Dr Saravanan was taking advantage of the fact that I was a junior doctor.”

Saravanan told the hearing he was just a ‘tactile’ person and intended no sexual misconduct.

But the three-person panel hearing the case was not convinced.

Banning him from working as a doctor, they said:

“The Tribunal considered there was an element of grooming to Dr Saravanan’s behaviour.

“He specifically chose young female doctors to accompany him on ward rounds.

‘This selectivity suggests an element of deliberate planning on his part in order to facilitate opportunities to make physical contact.

“In the tribunal’s view, there was a pattern of behaviour by an older male doctor directed solely towards younger female doctors. His conduct was sexually motivated.”