A DOCTOR struck off over a nursing home scandal was yesterday refused the chance to return to medical practice.
The General Medical Council's professional conduct committee in London took only five minutes to throw out Radha Gobinda Sarker's application to be restored to the register.
Dr Matthew Lohn, solicitor to the council, told the hearing that Dr Sarker, 65, of Neidpath Road East, Whitecraigs, Glasgow, had his name erased after a disciplinary committee hearing in July, 1996. The offences for which he was struck off occurred while he was a director and shareholder at the Glenglova Home for elderly people in Glasgow between 1990 and 1993.
He was found guilty of allowing 79-year-old resident Miss Agnes McCabe to develop increasingly severe bedsores. When Miss McCabe was eventually taken to hospital after being removed from the home by relatives, a doctor described the sores as ''the worst he had ever seen'', said Dr Lohn.
A post-mortem examination after Miss McCabe's death in December 1993 gave the cause of death as broncho-pneumonia, infected pressure sores, and dementia.
Health inspectors had also found that the residents of the home regularly received inadequate and unwholesome food. The home was inadequately heated and staffed and standards of hygiene were inadequate.
Dr Lohn added that the inspectors found lunchtime soup for the residents, for example, was ''watery and greasy, with apparently rotten vegetables''.
Dr Sarker, who attended yesterday's hearing with one of his sons, did not give evidence directly, but in a statement read by Dr Lohn ''acknowledged his error'' in the past and promised it would not happen again.
Formerly a GP in Castlemilk, he had been unemployed since his erasure, but wanted to get back on to the register so he could become involved in primary care with the local community.
He promised never to get involved with nursing or residential homes again and accepted that he had become involved in a family business for which he had not been trained.
The doctor showed no emotion as committee chairman Dr John Ball announced the rejection of his application. No reasons were given by the committee.
Last night Miss McCabe's nephew, Mr John McCabe, who has waged a long campaign for justice since his aunt died, said he was pleased with the outcome.
He added: ''I hope this is the end of the matter.
''It doesn't surprise me that they only took five minutes to throw out the case, but I am annoyed at the effrontery of the man in going down that road.''
Mr McCabe, who suffers from heart trouble - he was only just out of hospital on the day his aunt was taken dying to the Victoria Infirmary - said: ''All this hasn't helped, and my family and my doctors have suggested I am overdoing this and should ease off.
''But I understand he can go back later and try again to be restored as a doctor. I don't see the point at his age, but it would not surprise me and I don't think he should be allowed to practise or run an old folk's home again.''
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