Fake psychiatrist ‘prescribed medication to 164 patients at trust’
Fake psychiatrist who worked in the NHS for more than 22 years without ever qualifying ‘prescribed medication to 164 patients at one mental health trust alone’
- Zholia Alemi claimed to have a degree from New Zealand when she arrived in UK
- The 56-year-old had dropped out of her medical course after failing her first year
- Alemi went on to treat thousands of mental health patients over two decades
Zholia Alemi was jailed for fraud in 2018 after posing as a psychiatrist for more than 22 years
A woman who pretended to be a psychiatrist prescribed medication to 164 patients at one mental health trust, it has been revealed today.
Zholia Alemi worked as a locum consultant psychiatrist for the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) between 2014 and 2015, mainly looking after disabled adults and children.
Today it has emerged that during that time, the 56-year-old prescribed medication to 164 patients, according to a Freedom of Information request by the BBC.
Alemi claimed to have a degree from the University of Auckland in New Zealand when she came to work in the UK in 1992.
But the General Medical Council failed to check whether her documentation was genuine.
At that time, doctors from certain Commonwealth countries could be cleared to start work simply by presenting their qualifications, without sitting any assessments.
It meant that for more than two decades from 1995, Alemi was free to treat thousands of mental health patients in the NHS, prescribing medicine, making assessments and even sectioning some of the most vulnerable in society.
In October 2018, Alemi was jailed for five years after forging the will of an 84-year-old dementia sufferer in order to inherit her £1.3million estate. She is pictured here leaving court in 2018
In October 2018, Alemi was jailed for five years after forging the will of an 84-year-old dementia sufferer in order to inherit her £1.3million estate.
In 2017, Darren King, 31, died after having a seizure in a bath at his home in Lowestoft, Suffolk.
He was living independently while under the care of Alemi, who was working for the NSFT.
The 56-year-old prescribed medication to 164 patients
Mr King’s family claimed Alemi refused their requests to do a capacity test examining the risks of him living alone.
They told the BBC they were concerned about him using a bath because he sometimes did not take his drugs to stop seizures.
Alemi could have earned up to £100,000-a-year as an NHS psychiatrist and regularly splashed out on bottles of expensive champagne and drove around in a red Lotus Elise sports car.
It is understood that when she came to the UK from New Zealand, Alemi showed officials a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery certificate.
In reality, her only qualification was a degree in human biology.
The GMC admitted its checks had been inadequate and subsequently launched a review of the qualifications of more than 3,117 licensed doctors who joined the register using the now-abolished ‘Commonwealth route’.
Incredibly, Alemi had been investigated and given an official warning by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in 2012 after failing to disclose a conviction for careless driving.
She also sectioned psychiatric patients for treatment without the authority to do so, and was banned from working for 12 months as a consequence.
Darren King, 31, died in 2017 after having a seizure in a bath at his home in Lowestoft, Suffolk. He was living independently while under the care of Alemi, who was working for the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT)
A spokesman for the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘Zholia Alemi worked in a multidisciplinary team as a locum consultant psychiatrist for NSFT in 2014-15.
‘Our Trust terminated her contract as a result of safeguarding concerns and we provided information to the GMC for their investigation.
‘All the appropriate checks had been undertaken by the General Medical Council (GMC) and by the agency through which we employed Zholia Alemi before she joined NSFT. We checked that the GMC and the agency had run the necessary checks and that we had not received an alert not to appoint.
‘We have been assured by the GMC that their checks are more robust than they were in the 1990s. But as an added measure, if we receive a CV from an agency which refers to qualifications or first registration in the 1990s, we will flag this up with the GMC to double check.
‘NSFT’s Medical Director Dr Bohdan Solomka wrote to all patients and carers Zholia Alemi had contact with to get in touch with him to discuss any concerns they may have. He received two replies and was able to offer reassurances about the quality of care provided by the whole team, of which Zholia Alemi was just one member.’
A spokesman for the GMC, added: ‘It’s unacceptable that even a single person was able to join our register in this way, and we apologise for any risk arising to patients as a result.’
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