Further punishment for shamed and disgraced psychiatrist

As seen here

A psychiatrist who harassed a nurse at the QEII Hospital in Welwyn Garden City by asking to check her pulse to see if she was happily married has been suspended for another year to protect the public.

Dr Idowu Otote was banned for 12 months after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 2003 for his shameful festive frolics at another hospital in Devon where he groped a nurse's breasts and bottom after a hospital Christmas party.

The 41-year-old was allowed to work again providing he kept to certain conditions after he promised the General Medical Council (GMC) he had taken steps to improve his skills.

In October 2005 he was told he could still work provided he stayed within the NHS, practised under a consultant and avoided private locum work.

But the GMC decided last week that he should be suspended for another year, ruling he had failed to keep his skills up to date and had no insight into his conduct.

Otote started working for East and North Herts NHS Trust, which runs the QEII Hospital, in 2000 after resigning from South Devon Healthcare following the Christmas party incident.

However, as well as harassing the nurse there in August 2000, he also verbally abused another nurse a month later at the QEII-based Hollybush Day Hospital mental health unit when she explained she could not leave a ward to help him as she was the only nurse on duty.

On the same day he tried to pass off another nurse as a doctor and then he struggled to take a patient's blood pressure.

Otote also failed to examine physically three patients at the hospital when they were admitted.

Otote, from Southall, west London, trained as a medical officer in Nigeria.

GMC chairman Dr Kevin Dalton said the panel had decided that "it is necessary for the protection of members of the public and in the public interest" to suspend his registration for 12 months.

Otote will have to return to the GMC in a year with proof he has maintained his skills before the panel decides if he is fit to return to practice.