Dr Eren Battaloglu has been struck off the medical register
The Soho Road Health Centre where Dr Eren Battaloglu worked(Image: Google Maps)
A Birmingham doctor has been banned from practicing after asking a patient he was in an inappropriate sexual relationship with to buy him drugs – and telling her how she could abort his baby.
Dr Eren Battaloglu had been an experienced GP at the Soho Health Centre and the Kirpal Medical Centre since April 2020.
But he admitted he was ‘often under the influence of drugs and alcohol’ which had caused him ‘to behave recklessly’.
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He claimed he had met Ms A on an escort site, but she told the tribunal it was an ‘online dating site’ or a ‘hook up site’.
She claimed: “After I had had sex with him, he told me that he was my new doctor at my GP Surgery, Soho Road Health Centre in Birmingham and that he recognised me from the Surgery.
“I didn’t recognise him, and he was the only white doctor at the Surgery, so I thought that if I had seen him before I would have recognised him.
“I said to him something along the lines of: “That’s a bit stalkerish”, and he told me that he had just come across me before.”
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She claimed they were having sex regularly ‘twice a week’ and that he had given her money – ‘around £300 each time’ – after they had sex at first.
“I just remember him saying, ‘I’ll just give you this’ after we’d had sex the first time, at which time he told me he was my doctor, and he wanted some kind of arrangement but I’m not sure what he wanted because he didn’t say. I didn’t want any arrangement. I’m not sure what the money was for. Dr Battaloglu didn’t say.”
Despite Battaloglu’s claims he had only had sex with Ms A three times, the tribunal found their sexual relationship had continued for longer.
He admitted he had sent her WhatsApp messages of a ‘highly sexual nature’ but denied he had at first known she was a patient when they first met.
He also admitted he had requested she bought him illegal drugs, went to her house to drink alcohol, and had sent her money despite knowing she was vulnerable as a serious drug user and had significant mental health issues.
He also admitted that he had been told by Ms A that she was pregnant with his child and had offered to refer her to hospital for an abortion, which was inappropriate as he was in a personal relationship with her.
When Ms A then told him she had been advised it was too late to terminate the pregnancy, he admitted to discussing methods to induce termination with her, including taking two medications.
‘Clean now’
The tribunal heard Battaloglu had said he was now clean and he had taken significant steps to address his drug use.
Mr Ivill, representing Battaloglu, accepted his conduct had fallen short of the standard expected and was serious, but said these events could be described as an ‘isolated episode’ in an otherwise unblemished career.
He insisted it did not necessarily mean he was impaired to practice now since addressing his drug issues.
He submitted that Dr Battaloglu ‘recognises the significance of his actions and acknowledged that he was wrong and understands why his actions cannot be repeated’ and ‘recognises the existence of a power dynamic’.
He said he had treated the concerns seriously and worked hard on embedding his remediation and there was a ‘was a low likelihood of repetition in this case’ and he ‘does not pose a demonstrable risk to patient or public safety’.
Tribunal ruling
But the tribunal determined Battaloglu posed a current and ongoing risk to the health, safety and wellbeing of the public and ‘has shown himself willing to put his own interests before those of a patient and to persist in and cover up such behaviour over a protracted period.’
A report of the hearing said: “The Tribunal considered Dr Battaloglu’s actions to have undermined the public’s trust in doctors and that his misconduct would be considered deplorable by fellow members of the profession.”
The tribunal found while he had admitted the majority of the allegations and apologised for his behaviour, his focus on the impact of his actions were ‘on himself and his family’ and his ‘primary focus was on the negative impact of these events on him and that he gave little indication that he has effectively reflected on or fully appreciates the impact on Ms A.’
The tribunal found Battaloglu’s fitness to practise was impaired by reason of misconduct and the high level of risk he posed to public protection was ‘so significant that erasure was the only appropriate sanction’.
The panel asked his name to be struck from the medical register and his registration be suspended immediately at a General Medical Council misconduct hearing ending on April 23.
Battaloglu qualified as a doctor in 2013, completing his GP training at hospitals and GP Practices across Birmingham before working for two years as a locum in Sandwell and City Hospital Accident & Emergency Department.