Radiographer suspended for a year over sexual comments made in the UK

A radiographer's registration has been suspended for a year for professional misconduct over telling a female patient in England he wanted "to have sex with an English girl". William Santos also failed to disclose his consequent suspension from the UK register to the Irish authorities.

The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, granted the suspension order against Mr Santos, with an address in the Philippines, who registered as a radiographer here in 2015.

The suspension was sought by the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, known as Coru, over findings of professional misconduct by its professional conduct committee last January. These concerned his comments to the UK patient and failure to disclose the allegations against him in the UK in 2016 and his subsequent suspension there.

Mr Santos did not attend the inquiry and was not represented at it.

It heard Mr Santos was in June 2016 made subject of an interim suspension order by the UK Health and Care Professions Council arising from a complaint by a patient at Eastbourne District General Hospital who alleged, while working as a radiographer in January 2016, Mr Santos made various remarks to her.

She alleged he said to her: “Can I tell you a secret, I want to have sex with an English girl, if I had sex with an English girl, I could die” or words to that effect.

The patient also complained he later that same day sent her a private message on Facebook, apologising for what happened earlier that day, and saying: “I hope you’re not going to hate me” or words to that effect.

Her complaint led to investigations by Mr Santos’ employer and the local police during which he made a number of admissions. That lead to various interim orders from June 2016 suspending him from the UK register of radiographers.

After a March 2017 inquiry in the UK found Mr Santos guilty of professional misconduct over what he said to the patient and in the Facebook message, he was suspended from the UK register for a year, dating from April 27th 2017.

On Monday, a solicitor for Coru sought an order confirming the decision of the registration of radiographers board he should also be suspended here for a year.

Not represented

Mr Santos was not in court and was not represented.

In seeking suspension, the solicitor stressed Mr Santos was obliged to inform the regulatory body here of any change in his circumstances. The board also took into account his insight into his conduct; his acknowledgement of the inappropriateness of his behaviour towards the patient; his apology the same day to her, albeit in inappropriate form on social media, and his co-operation with the UK police and admissions made to them.

In confirming the suspension, Mr Justice Kelly said the “last thing” a patient needs is such conduct, the suspension was justified and public protection required it.

The case was serious but there are “more serious ones” and this was not a case to merit removal of Mr Santos’ name from the register, he said.

The judge reiterated his previous criticism of the “cumbersome” three stage procedure under which such matters are dealt with under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005.