UK psychiatrist Dr Hassan Abdulla ritually mutilated 41 boys at a ‘non-sterile’ clinic in a terraced house in Leicester.
Abdulla, according to this report, was not registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) when he operated at the Al-Khalill Clinic, where he performed non-profit operations for Muslim and Jewish families who could not afford to have them done privately.
Circumcisions for non-medical reasons are not offered in most NHS areas.
A tribunal in Manchester was told Abdulla, of Sudbrook, Lincolnshire, had applied for CQC registration to perform the procedure, but was refused.
He was fined £2,700 and ordered to pay more than £30,000 costs in July last year at Leicester Magistrates Court after admitting six charges of circumcising the boys between October 2011 and January 2012.
Nigel Grundy, for the General Medical Council, told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) Fitness to Practise panel the clinic operated from a house on Conway Road, Evington.
He said officials from University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust visited in 2012 after concerns were raised about an operation on a baby.
Abdulla failed to gain informed consent or take a full medical history from the five-week-old boy’s parents.
Officials found there was no separate area for the surgeon to scrub, only a basin in a separate shared toilet room and he did not maintain clean or sterile instruments.
Stephen Brassington, defending, said Abdulla formed the clinic when the NHS stopped providing the service.
He knew and knows that people have this procedure done and many cannot afford it if done privately by medical practitioners.
But his failure to provide a clean and sterile environment and his treatment of the baby were determined to amount to misconduct.
Fitness to Practise panel chairman Gill Mullen said she acknowledged he was “providing a non-profit service to the community” and that he made:
Some attempts to meet the required standard.
However:
He ultimately failed to do so.
The panel is now deciding what sanctions to impose on Abdulla.
Hat tip: Marcus Robinson