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Pretoria doctor suspended for 3-years over patients’ investments

A Pretoria doctor who persuaded patients and former patients to invest in a company that he knew was failing at the time, and which he owned, has been handed a three-year suspension by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA).

Centurion’s Stephen Grieve’s unprofessional conduct charges included that he then transferred the patients’ investments from The Grieve Group into his private bank account. The sanction, reports IOL, came on Monday (22 November) after a deliberation by HPCSA of the charges that dated back to 2014.

Grieve was charged with contravening the norms and standards of his profession and bringing the profession into disrepute, but objected to the HPCSA instituting disciplinary proceedings, saying the charges did not constitute unprofessional conduct as they were unrelated to the health profession.

The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, agreed, finding his conduct did not relate to the “treatment” of his patients, or the health profession, thus it could not probe his conduct.

However, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that in terms of the law, the HPCSA, among others, bears ‘extensive supervisory functions, including protection of the public from conduct arising during the rendering of health services; the maintenance of professional and ethical standards within the profession; and a duty to protect the public’s interests against a medical practitioner’.

 

IOL article – Centurion doctor Stephen Grieve suspended for three years for unprofessional conduct (Open access)

 

See more from MedicalBrief archives:

 

Doctor fired for forging scripts after pharmacist blows whistle

 

HPCSA disciplinary committee rulings for the third-quarter of 2021

 

Former Chatsworth hospital employee charged with theft of R250,000 dialysis machine

 

 

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