- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
A physiotherapist has been struck off for massaging a female patient’s breasts during a treatment for car crash injuries.
Purnoor Bawa had even asked if getting her nipple pierced had hard during an appointment on October 8, 2016.
During a follow-up session the woman was asked to take off her bra and top and Bawa massaged both her breasts.
Although the woman was booked for 10 sessions, she stopped after five due to Bawa’s unprofessional behaviour.
At the time, the patient referred the matter to Kent police there was insufficient evidence to formally charge him.
The Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service heard that Bawa denied allegations of sexual misconduct and told the police that she was “not a normal patient.” He, however, refused to elaboarate.
In the judgement the panel stated: “[The panel] considered that members of the public and members of the profession would be concerned to learn that a physiotherapist had been found to have engaged in serious and sexually motivated misconduct on two occasions.”
“[Bawa] had used his position as a physiotherapist to perpetrate sexually motivated conduct on a patient on two occasions, having gained [the patient’s] trust over the preceding three treatment sessions.
“His conduct was calculated and deliberate and he showed no insight into, or remorse for, the impact his behaviour had on Patient A, nor on his profession or the wider community.
“The panel was unable to identify any mitigating factors which would enable it impose a lesser sanction upon the Registrant – any sanction other than striking the registrant from the register would undermine public and professional confidence in the regulator.”
Bawa had moved to the UK from India in 2003 and had been running a private physiotherapy practice in Kent since 2017.
