A doctor admitted lying in order to practise medicine in Ireland including Donegal because he feared for his livelihood.
Dr Failsal Siddiqui blamed pressure from the murder of his younger brother in Pakistan and the subsequent death of his father from grief for the events that led to him covering up disciplinary proceedings taken against him in the UK.
Dr Siddiqui, who has worked as an orthopaedic surgeon in hospitals in Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Drogheda and Donegal said he regrets his lie ‘every day’ and prays for forgiveness.
The Pakistani born doctor faces one allegation of professional misconduct before a fitness to practise inquiry for failing to reveal in his application for Irish registration as a doctor in June 2011, that the UK’s General Medical Council had imposed conditions on his registration two months earlier.
It arose out of a complaint made by a patient at Kingston Hospital, London after Dr Siddiqui treated the man’s ruptured Achilles tendon by placing his leg in a cast.
He has told the inquiry that he failed to turn up to proceedings against him in the UK because of the extraordinary pressure he was under at the time.
His barrister Rosemary Mallon requested that the Medical Council take in to consideration the desperate circumstances of Dr Siddiqui found himself in when considering if he should be found guilty of professional misconduct.
“It was and mistake and it was poor judgement. There’s no malice, there’s no greed here. This was done because he was in desperate circumstances and desperate times,” Ms Mallon said.
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