An Indian immigrant doctor has been banned from practising more than a year after a New South Wales tribunal found him guilty of professional misconduct by carrying out an inappropriate vaginal examination.
Dr Mohanadas Balasingham, who worked at a clinic in Merrylands, western Sydney, was last month disqualified from registration in the health profession for three years by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The tribunal previously found that Dr Balasingham asked a patient inappropriate questions about her sexual history, including “how long have you been sexually active?” and “how many people have you been with?” during her first visit to his clinic in September 2020.
He then asked “how many boyfriends were Nepalese and how many are Australian?” and “so your parents allowed you to do whatever you wanted to do?”, which the tribunal ruled amounted to unsatisfactory professional conduct.
The patient attended the clinic after missing a period and suffering from abdominal cramps, but because a pregnancy test was negative and he did not have an ultrasound, Dr Balasingham penetrated her with his fingers during a vaginal examination to check for an ectopic pregnancy.
The patient said that Dr Balasingham then removed his fingers and started rubbing around her vagina and clitoris while asking her whether she had pain anywhere. She said the examination did not feel normal or appropriate, and was shocked and not sure what to do, the tribunal heard.
Dr Balasingham’s wife was on reception at the time, and the patient’s partner was in the waiting room.
After leaving the clinic the patient told her partner what had happened, and she made a complaint to the Health Care Complaints Commission and then made a statement to police.
Dr Balasingham denied that his questions were inappropriate, claimed the patient consented to the examination, and denied intentionally inappropriately touching her at any time.
He also said he did not offer a chaperone as the only female present was his wife, but was uncomfortable about offering her as “she was not clinically trained and it was culturally unacceptable to her”, the tribunal stated.
The tribunal found the vaginal examination was performed without informed consent, without offering a chaperone, and without clinical indication as he should have told her to attend a hospital emergency room if he believed she had a ectopic pregnancy, and that he inappropriately performed the examination when he rubbed her clitoris and the outside of her vagina for five to six seconds.
The tribunal also found Dr Balasingham failed to keep medical records to the requisite standard for the same patient, and failed to appropriately document a second patient’s medication regime.
Dr Balasingham, who was first registered to practice medicine in India in 1987 and became qualified to work in NSW in 2001, stopped practising in August last year and sold his practice in December.
Header image: Dr Mohanadas Balasingham (Healthengine).
