The newly-elected members of the Medical Council of Guyana were up to press time in a meeting and one of the items up for discussion was the granting of a licence to Dr Vishwamintra Persaud to practice locally even though he is a convicted child sex felon whose New York licence was revoked late in 2008.
Efforts to get a comment from the council provided to be futile but Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy when approached told Stabroek News that the matter was engaging the attention of the council.
Dr Ramsammy said that Dr Persaud is registered to practice here but noted that since the licence was granted the council had received more information than they had then “and I think we like the media received the same information.”
“The eligibility of him having employment in the public sector depends on him having a licence, so we would not prejudice the discussion we would wait until the medical council discuss it and once they have come to a discussion then we would conclude what to do,” Dr Ramsammy said.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Khan would not comment on the future of Dr Persaud with the Georgetown Public Hospital even thought the hospital’s board did meet on the issue. He told Stabroek News that he is an ex-officio member of the board and cannot comment on any decision that was made and that the newspaper should contact chairman of the Board Dr Nanda Gopaul.
When he was contacted earlier yesterday Dr Persaud told Stabroek News that he was willing to speak but he had to be granted permission by his superiors. However, efforts to contact him later proved futile as his mobile phone was either off or rang out.
According to New York Department of Health documents, on April 18, 2008 Dr Persaud was found guilty, based on a guilty plea, of “attempted course of sexual conduct against a child in the second degree”. On June 11 the same year he was sentenced to an eight-year order of protection, ten years probation, a US$25,500 fine and various fees and surcharges.
Dr Persaud abused the child from 2003 to October 2007 and only stopped after an adult was told. His licence, # 207867, was revoked in November 2007 following a hearing before the State of New York: Department of Health State Board for Professional Medical Conduct.
Two Sundays ago Dr Persaud had helped to safely deliver 19-year-old Shinnel George’s baby. George was at the time suffering from high blood pressure and preeclampsia. Preeclampsia usually develops after 20 weeks into gestation. The placenta creates a chemical substance which causes damage to the mother’s blood vessels as well as liver and could result in the low birth rate (Intra Uterine Growth Retardation) of the baby.
The New York report compiled by the three members who conducted the hearing –at the end of which a unanimous decision was made- stated that while Dr Persaud admitted he committed the crime he argued that he should not lose his licence to practice medicine because of the exceptional quality of his medical practice and because therapy had transformed him into a person who will never commit a similar act. In an effort to prove this Dr Persaud relied on the testimony of his therapist, Davis Gavurin who said he had learnt how to deal constructively with his emotions, pressures and frustrations, and, consequently would never commit an act of sexual abuse again.
“There are too many problems with Mr Gavurin’s testimony to consider it reliable. One of the strongest reasons he gave for his opinion was that the abuse took place over a short period of time, nine to twelve months. The first problem with this argument is that nine of twelve months is not a short period of time when the subject under consideration is the sexual abuse of a child. Also, the claim that the abuse lasted nine to twelve months is factually incorrect. The Respondent testified that the abuse began approximately in 2003 and did not end until October, 2007,” the report said.
It was pointed out that the only reason the abuse ended in October 27 was because the child finally told an adult and as such Dr Persaud deserved no credit for bringing the abuse to an end. Another fault with Mr Gavurin’s testimony was the fact that he did not know how frequently the abuse occurred as while he said it occurred three to five times, Dr Persaud had testified that it occurred six to eight times.
The report said that the therapist was unconcerned that he had not learned from Dr Persaud the details and the spoke of the problem.
As a result he based his opinion on an accurate understanding of how long the problem had persisted and the number of times it had manifested itself and also that it only ended after the child reported it.
Another problem with the testimony by Gavurin was the fact that he stated that Dr Persaud had an illness that was not cured but submitted that it would have been.
“If the illness that led to the sexual abuse is not yet cured, how can it be concluded that it will not cause additional acts of abuse?” the report questioned.
“Mr Gavurin expressed certainty not only that the Respondent would not repeat his acts of sexual abuse, but that he would never commit any type of antisocial act or criminal act. This remarkable assurance casts further doubt on Mr Gavurin’s credibility. His opinion is not accepted by this Hearing Committee,” it was stated.
A second argument made by Dr Persaud at the hearing was rejected outright. He told the committee that he was not a sexual threat to his patients and pointed out that the victim was a child and that all his parents were adults. Also he said that the sexual abuse was not committed at work. Dr Persaud had also argued that when the court sentenced him it labeled him a Level 1 sex offender, which is the lowest level.
This level is for those sex offenders least likely to repeat their misconduct. However, the committee said, that fact was far from a guarantee of safety.
It was noted that the court chose that level when Dr Persaud was still in the beginning stage of therapy and no one at that point had enough information on which to base a reliable opinion about recidivism.
The committee said that Dr Persaud‘s patients testified with “effusive praise” and numerous letters from patients and physicians attesting to the high quality of medical care were provided by him.
“Some of these letters are impressive, while others obviously are based on a template that the respondent admitted he provided to patients. For instance, 20 letters state that the patient would wait for two hours or a long time ‘just to see him’,” the committee wrote.
The committee ruled that regardless of how much evidence Dr Persaud marshalled about the quality of his medical practice, they could not allow him to practice medicine when the evidence about sexual abuse recidivism was so unimpressive.
“No matter how skilled a physician he is, his sexual crime makes him an unacceptable risk to the people of New York State.
His licence must be revoked,” the three-member committee wrote. They said he could have applied for reinstatement of his licence three years after the effective date of the revocation order.
