A MUSLIM doctor who took off his shoes and socks and washed his bare feet in a consultation room basin at Princess Alexandra Hospital as a patient looked on has been struck off.
A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service fitness to practise panel held in Manchester was told that Dr Fazal Haque ordered the patient to “shut up” when asked what he was doing cleaning his feet in the room in the accident and emergency department.
Dr Haque was later caught with the shift manager’s written record of the incident. He said he did not want it to go any further and that he had been rushing to wash before sunrise.
The panel was told the incident formed part of a pattern of inappropriate behaviour towards colleagues and patients in the hospital’s emergency department.
The panel heard Dr Haque had also told another member of staff she was “the rudest person in the department” and claimed she was “always racist” to another nurse. He also fell out with hospital employees, bickered with doctors, was aggressive towards nurses and called patients rude in their medical notes.
Dr Haque was also found to have made a string of clinical errors relating to his treatment of patients at the Harlow hospital between 2009 and 2011. The errors ranged from inadequate assessments, failure to spot dislocated joints or bone fractures, inappropriate prescribing of medication and inadequate record keeping.
The most serious failings related to his treatment of a 17-month-old baby who had been admitted to A&E with convulsions. The panel was told Dr Haque failed to properly examine the child, potentially exposing the tot to further convulsions and possible permanent brain damage.
He was eventually suspended from the hospital on full pay in July 2011 with instructions not to work anywhere else. However, he took locum shifts in the emergency department of the Weston General Hospital in Somerset.
Panel chairman Michele Codd said: “The panel is of the view that given Dr Haque’s deficient professional performance and misconduct, and in particular his persistent dishonesty, it is not in the public interest to retain him in the future as a medical practitioner.
“In reaching this conclusion the panel has considered that Dr Haque’s conduct in avoiding his teaching and training responsibilities, his inappropriate behaviour towards other medical professionals, his disrespectful manner to patients and his repeated acts of dishonesty are all serious departures from Good Medical Practice [professional guidelines] that are fundamentally incompatible with him continuing to hold medical registration.”
Mrs Codd also said the doctor’s widespread clinical failings presented a risk to patient safety, adding: “The public interest requires that it is made clear that Dr Haque’s behaviour is unacceptable.
“The panel considers that the reputation of the profession would be eroded if it were not to erase Dr Haque’s name from the registrar.”
Dr Haque, who was not present or represented at the hearing, has 28 days to appeal the decision before his name is removed from the medical register.
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