Merrylands: Dr Mohanadas Balasingham, Woodville Road Medical and Dental Centre disqualified from practising

A western Sydney doctor who sexually touched a woman and asked her a string of inappropriate questions about her sexual history has been banned from practising.

Dr Mohanadas Balasingham will be banned from practising for three years.

A Merrylands GP who sexually touched a woman and asked her how many partners she had and what their nationalities were, has been banned from practising more than a year after he was found guilty of professional misconduct.

Dr Mohanadas Balasingham was last month banned for three years after the Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted a complaint against him before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The medical tribunal found the former Woodville Road Medical and Dental Centre GP digitally penetrated a patient in September 2020 when she visited him with cramps.

After her pregnancy test returned a negative result, he digitally penetrated her during a vaginal examination because he wanted to identify if she had an ectopic pregnancy but did not have access to an ultrasound facility.

The tribunal found he should have asked the patient to attend a hospital emergency department instead of the vaginal examination.

Dr Mohanadas Balasingham was banned for three years. Photo: iStock generic image

Dr Balasingham “kept smiling” while under cross examination, when the tribunal heard he asked the patient how many sexual partners she had since she came to Australia, what nationality they were, if she had sex on the way to school when she was a teen and personal questions about her living arrangements.

He also sexually touched her and ignored her when she told him constantly she was not experiencing pain in that area.

The doctor argued a vaginal examination could give more information about the possibility of ectopic pregnancy or an infection and the woman replied “it’s all up to you’’ but the tribunal found he was not driven by a concern over an ectopic pregnancy but by ulterior motives.

The tribunal also rejected his “conflicting” evidence.

The GP also failed to organise a chaperone for the examination because it had “slipped” his mind and because his wife was on reception, he felt uncomfortable asking her to supervise it.

The tribunal found, because the woman’s partner was in the waiting room and Dr Balasingham’s wife was on reception, it made his offence more shocking.

“This meant the level of risk-taking involved was breathtaking, both professionally and personally,’’ the tribunal found.

Between 2019 and 2021, Dr Balasingham failed to appropriately monitor Patient B’s medication regime including an antidepressant and restricted substances.

Dr Balasingham, who was first registered as a medical practitioner in India in 1987 and then in NSW in 2001, joined the Merrylands practice in April 2019.

His registration was suspended in March 2021, but in April 2022, he was permitted to return to the practice with conditions on his registration.

Despite being found guilty of professional misconduct in 2023, he was allowed to continue seeing patients at the Merrylands clinic.

The tribunal disqualified him last month.