A locum doctor has been struck-off after he falsified timesheets while working at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin – resulting in him being overpaid almost £150,000.
A General Medical Council (GMC) tribunal heard that if Dr Odianosen Oriaifo had been telling the truth about his hours, he would have worked at least 13 hours a day every day, without any time off, for 15 months.
From November 2014, every time he claimed he was working nights, he would also claim he had started his day shifts immediately afterwards, which would have resulted in a 26-hour shift.
Multiple doctors at Dr Gray’s told the GMC his working patterns were “impossible”.
A NHS Grampian management accountant gave a statement to a counter-fraud investigation estimating Dr Oriaifo, who qualified from the University of Benin in Nigeria in 2005, was overpaid a total of £146,237 during his time at Dr Gray’s.
Doctor vanished from hospital and left country
When called by a clinical director to discuss the irregularities in January 2016, Dr Oriaifo left Dr Gray’s Hospital in the middle of his shift without telling anyone, and left the UK a few days later.
After several weeks, the GMC received a request from him for a Certificate of Good Standing, which is used by regulators in other countries to confirm that a doctor is considered fit to practice.
He was told: “I cannot issue a CGS at present because the investigation into your fitness to practise is still underway.”
Five years later, the GMC tracked him down to Baltimore in Maryland, USA.
The tribunal also heard that Dr Oriaifo – who did not attend the hearing and did not have legal representation – had failed to notify the GMC that he was being prosecuted in respect of two charges of dangerous driving in Scotland, and that he had admitted to seven further driving offences while living in Maryland.
‘High risk’ of repetition
The members of the tribunal concluded that not only was the doctor’s behaviour “fundamentally incompatible with continued registration”, it was concerned that any delay to imposing the order would undermine public confidence.
A report on the hearing ended: “The tribunal is satisfied that given Dr Oriaifo’s lack of insight and remediation, that there is a high risk of him repeating his misconduct and as such erasure is the only sanction that would adequately reflect the seriousness of his misconduct.
“Erasure of Dr Oriaifo’s name from the medical register is the only sanction sufficient to uphold the over-arching objective to protect the public, maintain public confidence in the profession and uphold proper professional standards.”