An A&E consultant at the centre of a fake injury scandal which occurred during a big rugby match has been suspended by the GMC’s interim orders panel.
Dr Wendy Chapman is alleged to have cut professional rugby player Tom Williams’ mouth to hide his use of a fake blood capsule.
Harlequins winger, Tom Williams, pretended to have a mouth injury towards the end of an important rugby match in order to allow a good kicker to come on to the pitch as his replacement in attempt to slot a winning penalty.
He was ‘helped’ from the pitch, after bursting a blood capsule he had hidden in his sock, during the Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster, who still won the game 6-5 in April 2009.
When it looked like he was going to be rumbled by the match officials he claims to have asked Chapman, the club’s match-day doctor, to cut his mouth to make it appear convincing.
Quins have been fined £259,000, their director of rugby Dean Richards received a three-year ban and Williams a four-month ban.
Dr Wendy Chapman has been suspended by the GMC’s interim orders panel. The panel can suspend a doctor from practising or put conditions on their registration while an investigation is carried out.
The GMC has up to 18 months to consider whether to take action against Dr Chapman, an A&E consultant in Maidstone Hospital, Kent, during which time she is not allowed to practice.
Last week, the Rugby Football Union announced that Harlequins would face no further charges over the scandal.
Suspension is never a neutral act. It has dreadful effects on a doctor. Is it not time that the GMC and the NHS instituted a “suspension compensation scheme?” That is, if you are suspended, found not guilty, the GMC/NHS pays you - and handsomely. Something along the lines of £500000 per year of suspension, tax free, or 5x the sum of your lost earnings if you have a significant private practice (to compensate for the gleeful hoovering up your colleagues will indulge in …………).
Such a scheme might concentrate their minds. The present system of “guilty until proved innocent” is nonsensical, is against natural justice, and panders to the silly whims of the public.