CCJ Dismisses Multi-million Dollar Claim By Guyanese Doctor

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, July 6, (CMC) – The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has dismissed a claim by a Guyanese medical practitioner for Guy$20 million (One Guyana dollar =US$0.004 cents) for loss of earnings.

In a ruling, the CCJ, which is Guyana’s final court, rejected the claim by Dr. Rama Sahadeo, who claimed that he had been unlawful suspended from his medical practice in October 1998, until he had satisfactorily answered some allegations of sexual misconduct made in 1977 by former patients.

These allegations had been made after the doctor had left Guyana on June 3, 1997 for medical treatment.

The CCJ noted that the doctor, however, had been continually absent from Guyana until July 29, 2000, so as to be unable to earn fees from medical practice.

“Moreover, an absence for over three years meant that the Council Secretary was bound by the Medical Practitioners Act to remove the doctor’s name from the Medical Register before the doctor returned to Guyana,” the CCJ ruled.

It said that from June 3, 2000, the doctor could not complain of the lawful absence of his name from the Register, indicating that he had been informed by the Council that his October 2000 and June 2002 applications to the Council for renewal of his annual licence, could not be dealt with, without first having his name restored to the Register by satisfactorily answering the 1977 allegations against him.

The CCJ ruled that Dr. Sahadeo had not appeared at a hearing before the Council to deal with the allegations before he brought these proceedings in 2003.

The CCJ held, his failure to answer these allegations had led to his inability to practise medicine so that he was not entitled to any damages for loss of earnings. The doctor was ordered to pay the Council’s costs in the CCJ and the Court of Appeal, to be assessed if not agreed.

In its ruling, the Court pointed out that the Court of Appeal had no grounds to interfere with the trial judge’s fact-finding as to the doctor’s awareness of the complaints against him before he was suspended, and set aside the Court’s order remitting the doctor’s damages claim to the High Court to be determined on its merits.

It affirmed the order of the Court of Appeal, setting aside the trial judge’s order that the Council proceed to hear and determine the allegations made against the doctor.