Sexual harassment allegations against NMC doctor: Inquiry will be completed in a week: health minister | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Sexual harassment allegations against NMC doctor: Inquiry will be completed in a week: health minister

LAHORE, April 15,2005: A detailed inquiry into allegations of sexual harassment against Prof Dr Ashiq Pervaiz, an orthopaedic surgeon at Nishtar Medical College and Hospital (NMC) Multan, will start tomorrow and will be completed within a week, said Dr Tahir Ali Javed, Punjab health minister, on Thursday.

A man lodged a complaint against Dr Pervaiz accusing him of exploiting his son’s operation to sexually harass his wife. The complainant said that the doctor had made advances on his wife and had forced her to have telephone sex with him.

The minister, who visited NMC on Thursday and discussed the matter with college principal Dr Shabir Ahmed Nasir and the board of governors, told Daily Times that stern action would be taken against the doctor if the allegations were proved. He said that the government could revoke the doctor’s registration if the allegations were true.

He said that he had discussed the issue with NMC authorities on the recommendation of the chief minister. He said that the NMC board members have demanded the government hold an independent inquiry into the allegations.

The minister said that if the allegations were proven, it would be up to the complainants to decide whether they want to initiate criminal proceedings against the doctor.

The complainants say they will initiate criminal proceedings against the doctor after the inquiry is complete. Meanwhile, NMC authorities have also received telephone calls from other people accusing the doctor of sexual harassment.

Dr Nasir received the complaint by a mother whose son had undergone two operations at the hospital. She accused Dr Pervaiz of having made advances on her. Dr Nasir had forwarded the complaint to the Health Department, which had sent a proposal to the chief minister recommending the doctor be suspended.

According to the text of the complaint, the doctor had been treating the complainant’s wife and had also operated on his son. “On March 22, we visited the doctor to have some screws removed from our son’s knee. The night before the operation, the doctor asked my wife to show him some recent x-rays of the knee. I was busy the next day so my wife went to him alone. He started molesting her on the pretext of a check up (because she was also a patient of his) and threatened her to go along because he was to operate on our son the next day. She came to the ward perturbed and started crying. On the day of the operation, he called my wife again asking her to meet him at his clinic at 3.30pm.”

The complaint also accused the doctor calling up his wife at 12.30am and forcing her to have phone-sex. He claimed that the professor had also been trying to bribe him.

“Can anybody imagine the mental torture my wife and I had to go through when our son was being operated on? I will take action against the doctor, through a different platform if necessary,” he said.

Source: Daily Times

Date:4/15/2005