UK Court Changes Punishment Of Nigerian Doctor Who Had Se-x With A Patient In Toilet
A Nigerian Doctor based in London, has been suspended for a year after having se-x with a patient in a hospital toilet cubicle.
Dr Ewere Onyekpe, a locum registrar, is said to have begun a se-xual relationship with the woman while working at the Whittington Hospital in Archway in June 2020.
He was initially given a six-month suspension in January 2023 over the relationship, but this was overturned after the High Court ruled that the decision by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service was “fundamentally flawed” as it had not considered evidence that the woman was vulnerable.
A hearing in February reconsidered the case. It found that Dr Onyekpe was guilty of misconduct and he was suspended for 12 months.
The tribunal heard that he had given the patient an “intimate examination” after she was brought to the hospital’s A&E on June 5, 2020.
She then gave him her phone number, with a note saying: “In case you want to be friends or anything.”
Dr Onyekpe sent the patient a WhatsApp message an hour after she was discharged from A&E and the pair exchanged messages over the coming days.
On June 10, she was brought back to Whittington’s emergency department where she exchanged messages with Dr Onyekpe for three-and-a-half hours.
Their messages later became “highly sexualised” and the pair had se-x in a hospital toilet cubicle that same day, the panel was told. Dr Onyekpe also had se-x with the patient a day later in her home.
The tribunal heard that the pair continued to exchange sexual messages, interspersed with medical advice from Dr Onyekpe, until July that year.
In August 2020, Dr Onyekpe told the General Medical Council he had been arrested on suspicion of r-ape, but he was released without charge.
The hearing determined that he should have known the patient was vulnerable due to her health conditions and medical history.
He told the tribunal he was “deeply sorry” that his actions had “undermined the reputation of the profession.
