'It takes my breath away': Man learns he may have been abused by anaesthetist
Anaesthetist Dr Aamir Zuberi had been working at Naas General Hospital since at least 2012. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire
A man who believes he was sexually abused by an anaesthetist in an Irish hospital has said that he can no longer trust anyone.
In early 2017, the man was admitted to Naas General Hospital to undergo tests after suffering persistent stomach pains and it was determined he needed to have his appendix removed. It was two years later that the man's world was irrevocably changed.
Speaking to based on anonymity, the man called Michael is now telling his story. On the day of his procedure, medical files show that Michael was brought to theatre just before 3pm but he did not return to the ward for over nine hours.
According to Dr Bernard Norman, a consultant anaesthetist, a laparoscopic appendicectomy would typically take between 90 minutes and two hours. Michael was discharged three days later and continued about his life unaware that anything sinister could have happened to him during his hospital stay.
In 2019, Michael was contacted by gardaí in Naas and told that several statements had been made about suspected sexual assaults of himself and other patients. The complaints were made in relation to Dr Aamir Zuberi, an anaesthetist working at Naas General Hospital since at least 2012.
A number of staff from the hospital had gone to gardaí to report their concerns about the doctor.
Recalling the conversation that rocked their lives, Michael's wife said: "He said that they came to the Garda station in Naas, they made their complaints, you know there was several patients and there were three or four different nurses who made the statements.
According to , concerns regarding Dr Zuberi were not raised with hospital management until December 2017, seven months after Michael's operation. Michael agreed to give a garda statement although, because of the anaesthetic, he is unable to recall much about the operation.
There was one memory of waking up in the recovery room which he told gardaí about.
"When I woke up it was dark, there was faint light in the background. I don’t know instead of waking up with two legs lying straight, I woke up with my left knee sticking up, like my foot was on the bed and my right leg my knee was sticking out the side of the bed flat," said Michael.
"I didn’t think anything of it at the time because I was groggy, I woke up and obviously I went back to sleep. I don’t know, you know it is very difficult to be 100% - that is the worst part of all of this."
Michael was informed that Dr Zuberi had been placed on administrative leave by the hospital pending investigation. But in summer 2019, he was told the doctor had returned to his native Pakistan.
Dr Zuberi is subject to ongoing investigations by An Garda Síochána, the HSE and the Irish Medical Council but Ireland has no extradition agreement in place with Pakistan. As a result, all three investigations have effectively been stalled.
Investigating officers say they are liaising with Interpol on the matter and are not in a position to comment in detail at this time. Michael said it is astonishing that they cannot bring him back to Ireland.
"To know that he was on the radar for that long, god knows how many procedures he went through you know being maybe one of the only few anaesthetists – so that is the sad part for me that he was allowed to slip through the net and disappear."
Four years on since his operation, Michael said he has never been contacted by Naas General Hospital, instead receiving updates from Gardaí.
"I got no correspondence from the hospital just to say that we are internally investigating this, not even, I’ve not even had an apology even, it was the fact that, just the recognition that they were looking into this."
He added: "I haven’t got the words to say how I feel about Naas Hospital. Nobody is accountable for anything, really."
reports that Dr Zuberi has been practising in Pakistan, working at a clinic in Singal where he was the sole anaesthetist. Michael spoke of the devastating impact the ordeal has had on him and his everyday life, saying that he feels weak.
"I mean that fight that you expect to want to have, I don’t have it, that has been taken away from me."
He is now afraid of hospitals and his ability to trust anyone at all, not just medical professionals, has been stolen from him.
"I am scared of hospitals now, if there is a crowd of people there, I’ll be okay I can’t explain it but if you are in a room all on your own you don’t know what’s coming through the door, you don’t know what’s going in your IV, you don’t know what’s happening anymore.
"Once that switch has been turned on, you can’t turn it off - even if I wanted to, I can’t. I can’t deal with trusting anybody anymore and it is not just hospitals, it is sort of everybody.
"I used to have a sort of social network, I don’t have any social network now, you know I don’t go anywhere, I don’t go out."
When contacted by , the HSE said Naas General Hospital “…has been strongly advised that it cannot comment as to do so would unfairly prejudice the outcome of an ongoing Garda investigation.”
