Boots pharmacist struck off for touching morning-after pill mum's ‘intimate areas’
Pharmacist Sajjaad Patel has been struck off the register for touching a patient’s “intimate areas” for “sexual gratification” after incorrectly telling her she needed a physical examination to get a morning-after pill – although a court did not convict him for the incident.
Boots pharmacist Sajjaad Patel, registration number 2087604, “failed to safeguard” a patient when he touched her “intimate areas” during a consultation for the morning-after pill, the pharmacy regulator said.
In September 2020, the mother-of-three and mental health nursing graduate attended Boots Chemist in Rawtenstall to obtain emergency hormonal contraception (EHC), a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) committee heard over a five-day hearing last month (July 8-12).
When the patient asked for a private consultation as she was “embarrassed to ask about the pill”, Patel told her that “we do things differently now [and] I need to examine your stomach to check your hormones”, the fitness-to-practise (FtP) hearing documents said.
The patient turned down the offer of a chaperone as she believed Patel to be “only checking [her] stomach”, but Patel quickly left her feeling “uncomfortable” and “incredibly vulnerable” when he asked her to lower her shorts “exposing her pubic region”, the committee heard.
It found that in the examination – which was “not clinically justified” - he touched the patients’ breasts, “bum”, genitalia and clitoris “without express consent”.
Patel denied that he had touched his patient’s “genitals, breasts, bum or any private parts, even by accident” and told the committee that he had examined her “underneath the breast and above the private parts” – touching “only” her stomach “with her consent” - because she had “complained of pain there”.
He told the regulator that he “had a good life with a new property and baby on the way [and] would not have jeopardised this by doing what was alleged”.
But the GPhC found that his explanation was “inconsistent” and stressed he was not “qualified to conduct a physical examination”.
“He was not honest” and “deliberate unconsented touching of the sexual parts of a patient’s body” for “sexual gratification” is a “gross breach of trust and professional boundaries,” it added.
It comes after he was found not guilty during a criminal trial after being arrested in September 2020, the documents said.
“Frozen, scared and upset”
The committee heard that the patient had been “vulnerable” when she attended the pharmacy with her two-year-old daughter.
She said that Patel “pushed and prodded” her, and “drew a heart shape over the top of her knickers” before touching her “intimate areas”, and that “he constantly stared at her which ‘freaked’ her ‘out’”.
The patient “did not stop the registrant because she froze, was scared and she was upset”, the FtP documents said.
As she was leaving, she “called her friend and said ‘I think I’ve just been violated’”, before then telling her boyfriend and calling Asda pharmacy to check “what the EHC procedure was”, the documents added.
She told the committee that she “feels sick about what happened [but] has tried not to cry about it as she has three children at home who all depend on her and she does not want them seeing her upset”.
She stressed that “there was nothing accidental about the registrant’s touching of her”.
GPhC “more inclined to believe” the patient
After a police interview, Patel claimed that he had “offered to examine” his patient after she had mentioned “a bump to the left side of her stomach”, the documents said.
He told the Boots area manager that he said that he did not have “any further training” to carry out an examination but was “just trying to help out”, they added.
He told the committee that his patient said that she did “not know where her womb was so he could have used that opportunity to touch her then…but he did not, he just explained where it was”.
But the committee found his evidence “undermined”, considering it “implausible that [the patient] did not know where her womb was given that she is medically trained and has had three children”.
It said that Patel’s explanation for “the purpose of the examination [was] inconsistent, changing from checking whether the lump was sinister”, to complaints “of pain” from the patient, to checking “if the lump would affect the absorption of the morning after pill”.
“The registrant has stated on many occasions that he likes to go the extra mile for his patients, but it is not clear to the committee how he can go the extra mile when he is not trained to do so,” it added.
It said that it “could not find any reason for [the patient] to fabricate what happened to her and she was consistent in her evidence and during her live examination”.
“Consequently, the committee is more inclined to believe [her] version of events,” the GPhC added.
“Limited remorse”
After the committee found all of the facts of the case proved, Patel made an application to admit evidence “in the form of new character reference”, but the committee said that it “opposed the application” as “the registrant had ample time to gather the references prior” to the hearing.
Patel said that he “deeply regrets having conducted the physical examination” and had “reflected heavily, spoken to friends and pharmacists and wanted to understand things”.
“This incident has not only been a learning experience for himself, but also for other pharmacists”, the committee heard. But it said that Patel was “not alive to the fact that the entire examination was not clinically justified” and therefore “presents as a potential risk to members of the public”.
It added that his “limited insight, limited remorse expressed [and] limited remediation” might “bring the profession of pharmacy into disrepute in the future”.
The GPhC said that “the conduct was carried out in a therapeutic environment that led to an imbalance of power between the registrant and [patient]” and therefore “a suspension would not instil public confidence in the profession”.
“The committee considered that removal was the only sanction that could meet the public interest in this case,” it stressed.
Read the determination in full here.
If you’ve been affected by sexual harassment in the work place, reach out to NAWP , Pharmacist Support or PASS in Northern Ireland for help. Find free materials to raise awareness of a zero tolerance of abuse policies in pharmacies here.
