London, May 25: Indian doctors are deeply respected in Britain because they constitute the backbone of the National Health Service but far too often individuals bring dishonour on themselves and on India either by fondling female patients or, as is the case with Dr Jagdeep Balram Gossain, grossly abusing the system for financial gain.
Gossain cheated the health service of over ?500,000, it has been established.
The 46-year-old doctor came to Britain from Tanzania. Gossain had a flourishing practice in Fulham, a well-heeled part of south-west London, and was in the prime of his career.
But succumbing to greed he threw it all away and found himself struck off yesterday by the General Medical Council “for serious, professional misconduct” ? which means he can no longer practise as a doctor in Britain.
Under the present system, doctors who make night visits to patients receive extra payment for each outing because most do not like leaving the comfort of their homes after a hard day at the surgery.
Gossain was just the opposite. He relaxed during the day, making regular visits to the gym (even when he was supposed to be “unwell”) and made up as a night doctor by paying visits to patients, the majority of them “unnecessary”. On some nights, he made up to 30 visits, which were not really required and stung the local health authorities for each one.
He almost merits an entry in the Guinness Book of Records but, alas, for all the wrong reasons. He made 160 times more claims than the average practitioner.
Possibly because the English and his employers are such a trusting lot, he was able to milk the system and charged Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow Health Authority ?514,593.07 over an eight-year period until 1998. The surprise is that he was not rumbled sooner.
The professional conduct committee of the General Medical Council (GMC), sitting in London, found Gossain, of Osterley, near Hounslow, Middlesex, guilty of serious professional misconduct after a two-week hearing.
It said: “The panel concluded that the vast majority of these visits had been clinically inappropriate. Indeed, the night visits impaired his ability to operate in accordance with his advertised surgery hours, which were in any case less than the contracted minimum.”
With so many consultations, “patients could not have been offered proper medical evaluation or care, given the very large number of visits and wide geographical area covered”.
Susan Curran, practice manager at the surgery for nine years, told the hearing that the doctor worked just a few hours during the day before going to the gym.
The panel ruled his claim that he could not attend previous GMC hearings because of a back injury that left him unable to move was false. Five days after it adjourned a hearing, “Gossain was observed exercising energetically at the (David Lloyd Leisure) Centre”, it said.
The panel found him guilty of altering patient records retrospectively, “exemplifying the fact that his clinical records were inadequate, were not completed contemporaneously and were misleading”.
Sarah Plaschkes, lawyer for the GMC, said: “The council submits that Dr Gossain deliberately, dishonestly deceived this professional body by pretending he was too ill to attend the hearing when, in fact, he was at a leisure centre.”
Gossain charged for up to 540 emergency call-outs a month, increasing his annual salary to close to ?200,000 a year and using almost a third of the local health authority’s out-of-hours GP budget. Gossain had a target list of about 100 patients at Fulham whom he used repeatedly on claim forms.
A BBC television Panorama investigation found that his three children went to private school and he drove a Mercedes with private number plates. His wife, Shashi, a pharmacist, has said his only crime was to have been a “workaholic”.
