A HOSPITAL doctor who acted inappropriately to two patients - including kissing a woman's hand - has been suspended.

Ahmed Elshafety, who worked at Furness General Hospital in Barrow, was handed the sanction after a fitness to practise hearing.

The tribunal panel heard Dr Elshafety was working as a specialist in ophthalmology - eye care - when he made inappropriate comments to two patients and acted inappropriately towards a nurse.

The panel ruled that during a consultation in February 2020, the doctor complimented the first woman's hair and told her he really liked her.

SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER SO YOU DON'T MISS STORIES LIKE THIS

He also told her he would like to be friends with her outside the hospital.

In another incident in a consultation in July 2021, the doctor took another woman's hand and stroked it, before removing his face mask and kissing it, the panel heard.

He then said words to the effect of: "I thought to myself who is that pretty girl in that pretty red dress, I would have approached you, but I was working."

The tribunal heard he then asked if they could get coffee together and hugged her.

Later in the summer of 2021, the doctor was approached in his office by a nurse with regards to wearing a face mask.

He positioned himself in front of the door so she could not leave and told her he would not move from the door until she told him how to wear a mask without his glasses steaming up.

The hearing was told the doctor had apologised for his behaviour.

He admitted being impulsive and asked the tribunal to understand that his 'disrespectful and unacceptable behaviour towards Patient B was because he had over-sympathised with her because of all the circumstances, including his own disappointment with access to treatment for himself and his family', hearing documents said.

The tribunal determined that Dr Elshafey’s fitness to practise is currently impaired and to suspend his registration for a period of five months.

It imposed an immediate suspension to cover the 28-day appeal period and directed a review hearing should take place before the end of the suspension period.

Dr Elshafey, who qualified in 2004 from Tanta University in Egypt, had worked at FGH for around three years at the time of the first incident.