GP cleared of charge at fitness to practice inquiry

A GENERAL practitioner has been cleared of charge of conducting an internal examination on a woman for his sexual gratification by a Medical Council fitness to practice inquiry yesterday.

Dr Hashim Abdullah Mukhtar Eisa, who practices medicine at the Basin Medical Centre in Naas, Co Kildare, was before the council as a result of a complaint made by Elaine McGrane, a patient of Dr Hashim and also from Naas.

Ms McGrane, aged 35, a married mother-of-one, claimed there was no clinical justification for the internal examination and remarks made by the doctor when she visited the centre in September 2009.

Inquiry chairman, Dr Richard Brennan, a medic and council member, said the committee found that the allegations made against Dr Hashim by Ms McGrane were not proven as to fact.

“The committee wishes to say that nothing in its decision is intended to reflect in any way on the evidence of Ms McGrane.”

Dr Hashim strongly denied during the day-long inquiry that he had conducted an internal investigation when he saw Ms McGrane on September 29, 2009.

The doctor also denied a charge that his examination of the woman’s breasts was for his sexual gratification.

The woman, who went to a different GP after seeing Dr Hashim, claimed she did not make a complaint to the council until February 2010, when she was five months pregnant, because of the turbulent and emotional months she had experienced afterwards.

A receptionist, secretary and nurse who worked at the centre defended Dr Hashim’s character, describing him as a gentlemen who cared for his patients.