Senior UK psychiatrist struck off for abusive relationship

Ex-Dr Steven Lomax was last month sum­mar­ily struck off from the UK register of doc­tors by the Gen­er­al Med­ic­al Coun­cil in London.

In this excep­tion­al hear­ing, the GMC ruled that the former seni­or psy­chi­at­rist, who used to work as the Dir­ect­or of the Castel Hos­pit­al in Guernsey:

  • had an inap­pro­pri­ate emo­tion­al and sexu­al rela­tion­ship with his patient, Michele Mauger;
  • had appar­ently des­troyed her med­ic­al records;
  • had brought the med­ic­al pro­fes­sion into disrepute.

Michele_and_Lomax

How do I know all this?  The vic­tim of this egre­gious abuse, Michele Mauger, is my mother.

The GMC made an excep­tion to hear this case in the light of the sever­ity of the abuse and the over­whelm­ing prima facie evid­ence of  Lomax’s guilt.  Cases older than 5 years are usu­ally not invest­ig­ated.  Michele’s abuse began over 23 years ago.

In a resound­ing con­dem­na­tion, the GMC stated that he had “blatantly trans­gressed” the bound­ar­ies gov­ern­ing the doctor/patient rela­tion­ship and that he had caused “irre­par­able dam­age both to the patient and her family”.

There has been some cov­er­age in the media.  Per­haps the most accur­ate reflec­tion of what happened can be found in the  Guern­sey Press: Down­load Guernsey_Press_front_page, Down­load Guernsey_Press_Interview

The gov­ern­ing body of the Guern­sey hos­pit­als, the Board of Health, would also appear to have some ser­i­ous ques­tions to answer.

Michele recently did an excel­lent inter­view on BBC Radio4: Woman’s Hour, that encap­su­lated the core issues around this type of pro­fes­sion­al abuse. The inter­view is at the begin­ning of the show — listen here.