Married NHS doctor is struck off after smacking the bottoms of two female medical students

A senior NHS doctor has been struck off after he inappropriately touched two female students, telling one ‘the only way to shut a woman up is to kiss her’. 

Dr Bassel Hayssam El-Osta was suspended three times in three years after allegations of sexual misconduct made by two female students emerged.

The married Senior Orthopaedic Registrar was accused of taking advantage of the women as they shadowed him at the Royal Free Hospital in London, including smacking their bottoms and calling them his ‘two beautiful girls’.

Now he has been struck off the medical register after four separate tribunals – from 2017 to 2019 – found he had shown a ‘persistent unwillingness to engage’.  

Citing ‘surgery, lecturing, and other activities,’ Dr El-Osta did not appear at the latest Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing in Manchester.

The first tribunal in 2017 heard that Ms A and Ms B, who cannot be named for legal reasons, shadowed Dr El-Osta in February 2015. He was then accused of putting his arm around the waist of them both, before smacking Ms A’s bottom. 

It was also alleged that in March 2015, the doctor had touched Ms B’s hand before telling her ‘the only way to shut a woman up is to kiss her’. She claimed that he had kissed her lips without her consent, saying ‘you can’t say no to me’.

Ms B further claimed that Dr El-Osta told her he had once given a female patient an orgasm whilst carrying out a vaginal examination, before revealing that he had wanted to have sex with some of his patients in the past. 

The 2017 tribunal determined that his ‘represented an escalating pattern of calculated behaviour within a professional context and where there was a power imbalance’, and ultimately suspended him for 12 months. 

Dr El-Osta’s case was reviewed in December 2018, where the tribunal concluded that he had not ‘fully appreciated the gravity of his misconduct’. 

Citing ‘surgery, lecturing, and other activities,’ Dr El-Osta did not appear at the latest Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing in Manchester (pictured)  

It concluded he was unfit to practice, and handed him a six-month suspension.

Last year, a third tribunal to establish if his fitness to practice remain impaired, heard how he had asked his wife to check the Facebook account of one victim.

An MPTS document shows the tribunal gave Dr El-Osta a nine-month suspension, to ‘develop further reflection on his misconduct’.

However, the MPTS that met last month decided: ‘Since the 2019 hearing Dr El-Osta has shown a persistent unwillingness to engage and has not demonstrated any insight; on the contrary, his insight appears to have diminished.’

The MPTS concluded that the only possible option left was to have Dr El-Osta struck off with immediate effect.