‘I have money’: Doctor touched patient’s breast then gave her $5000, tribunal finds
A celebrated doctor gave a young female patient $5000 in hush money after committing a disturbing act during an appointment, a tribunal has heard.
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A family doctor grabbed the breast of a patient who was more than three decades younger than him, before transferring her $5000 hush money, a tribunal has found.
Dr Sathiyapal Kulanayagam, who works as a general practitioner at practices across Western Australia, Victoria and NSW, faced the Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Monday after an application for disciplinary orders was lodged against him by the Health Care Complaints Commission.
Dr Sathiyapal was accused of “inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature” while working at Ropes Crossing Medical Centre in Sydney’s west in 2019 while treating a 24-year-old patient.
The tribunal heard how Dr Sathiyapal, who was 55 at the time, told the woman that he was leaving for Perth and said: “You should leave your partner and kids and come with me” and “I’ll pay for your services”.
The tribunal also heard how Dr Sathiyapal during one consultation asked her for a selfie and stated “oh you are all dressed up for me” before he began taking photos of her.
“I was sitting in the chair next to his desk and he was sort of taking pictures around me. I remember I was wearing a denim skirt. He was holding his phone down quite low. I felt like he was trying to take pictures of my vagina area, up my skirt,” the patient wrote in a statement.
The tribunal heard how the patient told her long-term partner about Dr Sathiyapal’s conduct, to which he told her to ring him if the GP behaved inappropriately again so he could “hear what he was saying”.
During one appointment, the patient said she felt she was experiencing a panic attack to which Dr Sathiyapal “placed his hand down the front of (the patient’s) top, inside her bra and grabbed her left breast”.
The patient rang her partner who was parked outside waiting for her who then went into the medical centre and confronted Dr Sathiyapal.
The tribunal heard how Dr Sathiyapal told the man: “Please don’t go to the police. Look at the colour of my skin. Please, I’m a black man. I can’t go to (jail). If I go to (jail), they’ll kill me. I have money. I’ll give you money.”
Dr Sathiyapal then transferred $5000 into the patient’s bank account.
In a statement from the patient’s partner, he explained how the pair were “on the fence” about accepting the money however “really needed the money”.
“I was really disgusted with him and I wanted to report him to the police, but we were stuck in a tight situation. We had been staying in temporary accommodation for almost 30 days (which is the maximum time allowed). I was out of work, and we were just about to become homeless,” he said.
“If we weren’t in that situation, I 100 per cent would have gone straight to the police.
“I think I said to (my partner) in the car, “Should we still go to the police?” But we decided not to because we were desperate, we really needed the money. That money did help us. We got accepted for a house in Kingswood the very next day and we used the money to pay the bond and buy some furniture.”
The patient said she agreed to take the money as she did not think anyone would believe her word against that of a doctor.
The HCCC took on the case after the patient disclosed her experience during an admission to hospital in 2020.
Dr Sathiyapal denied he was ever “sexually suggestive” with the patient and claimed the $5000 was fraudulently taken from his bank account.
The tribunal proved the complaints set out by the HCCC to be true with disciplinary action for the doctor to be handed down in the coming months.
In a statement, the Ropes Crossing Medical Practice said Dr Sathiyapal was an independent contractor at the time and no longer worked at the clinic.
News.com.au has contacted Dr Sathiyapal for comment.
Originally published as ‘I have money’: Doctor touched patient’s breast then gave her $5000, tribunal finds
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