A banned family doctor gave a child an unnecessary

A banned family doctor gave a child an unnecessary vaccination after his GP wife allowed him to carry on practising at their surgery, the GMC heard today.

(WED)

Disgraced medic Rajindar Gupta was struck off in 1996 for ‘gross failures’ including ignoring requests for treatment by terminally ill cancer patients.

But within two months of his name being erased from the medical register, he was consulting again under his wife Prabha’s nose.

After a year of seeing patients he wrongly gave three measles, mumps and rubella jabs to a baby, the committee heard.

Although the youngster is understood to have come to no harm, the child’s mother complained and an investigation into Mrs Gupta’s practice was
launched.

Sarah Vaughan Jones, for the General Medical Council, told the hearing: ‘Mrs Gupta permitted Mr Gupta to continue to give consultations with patients after his erasure.

‘

Miss Vaughan-Jones explained the Guptas had two surgeries, the main one at (8) St Kilda Road, Ealing, west London, and (59) Rutland Road, Southall.

Mrs Gupta hired another doctor in July 1996, Dr Satyabrata Chatterjee, to work alternate days with her at the two practices, to replace her husband.

But Dr Gupta continued to practice as a GP at the surgery, and would work at the same time as his wife.

Dr Chatterjee soon became concerned that a banned GP was still practising, as did the nurse at the two surgeries, Venus Hingerton.

The matter came to a head when the mother of the small child who had been given the ‘MMR jab’ complained to Dr Chatterjee in mid 1997.

Miss Vaughan-Jones said: ‘Dr Chatterjee spoke to Mr Gupta, and said it was wrong to give three MMR vaccinations.

‘Mr Gupta’s response was there was in fact no problem with giving a third vaccination.

‘When tackled that he shouldn’t be giving vaccinations at all, and that they should be given by a nurse, his response was to shrug that off.

‘Mrs Gupta was present through the whole of that discussion and heard Mr Gupta effectively accept he had given that vaccination.

‘

Mr Gupta allegedly ripped up the record card of that vaccination and tossed it in the bin.

It was found by Mrs Hingerton who taped it back together.

She also reported Mr Gupta to the local health authority.

After the incident Mr Gupta’s solicitors withdrew their claim for him to be restored to medical practice but he continued in practice.

‘Mr Gupta ceased to go into Mrs Gupta’s consultations so frequently, and stopped writing notes, but continued to beckon patients to see him at both
Southall and Ealing,’ said Miss Vaughan-Jones.

He even consulted one patient, Mrs A, and wrote a referral letter for her to go to Ealing Hospital in July 1998, it was claimed.

Mrs Gupta, registered at St Kilda Road, denies serious professional misconduct.

She denies that she permitted her husband to take part in consultations between May 1996 and December 1998, or that she knew her husband was holding them.

She also denies she failed to prevent him holding the consultations.

Mrs Gupta had conditions placed on her practice in March 1996 at the same GMC hearing in which her husband was struck off.

She had been censured for failing to protect patient confidentiality – by permitting prescriptions and other documents to be dumped outside their surgery.

The hearing continues.

ends