Daily Times

MIRPUR KHAS: A three-member committee Tuesday found a doctor guilty of sexually harassing his female colleagues, and suggested that departmental inquiry be started against him.

Dr Ramesh had been accused of sexual harassment and subsequently found guilty.

The three-member inquiry committee constituted by the hospital administration to probe the matter recorded the statements of over 11 members of the hospital’s staff, including the nurse who had levelled allegations against the doctor. Dr Ramesh, however, failed to appear before the committee.

The Health Department has now constituted another committee comprising three senior doctors. The new committee also recorded statements from relevant people. Doctors and paramedical staff at the Civil Hospital Mirpur Khas on Tuesday boycotted their duties in solidarity with the doctor accused of sexual harassment.

A notice, by the Pakistan Medical Association, to shut down the Out Patient Department (OPD) was placed in the hospital. On Monday, a group of nurses had physically assaulted the doctor, alleging that he had sexually harassed them.

Police had to be called in to the hospital as the situation turned rough and the paramedic staff had to intervene to rescue the injured doctor from the enraged group. One of the nurses, who were crying hysterically at the scene, had claimed that the doctor had been sexually harassing not just her but her other colleagues as well in the premises of the operation theatre for a week.

In his defense, the doctor claimed that he had only stopped the nurses from “applying makeup in the operation theatre,” after which they began “attacking” him. Hospital documents show that in 2014, the same doctor was accused of sexual harassment and, upon investigation by the hospital authorities, he was found guilty of engaging in inappropriate behaviour with a woman.

Published in Daily Times, February 21^st 2018.