Former doctor found guilty of misconduct after calling watchdog ‘killers’ in emails

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This article was published 28/02/2023 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Winnipeg doctor who twice ran for the Manitoba Progressive Conservative party has been reprimanded after he labelled officials with the province’s physician watchdog as “killers” in emails, saying they “tortured” him.

The latest investigation into Naseer Ahmed Warraich also found he altered a baby’s vaccination record in an attempt to mislead the watchdog during its investigation.

The new disciplinary decision, posted Monday on the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba’s website, states Warraich was found guilty of professional misconduct, contravening the code of ethics, displaying a lack of skill, knowledge and judgment in the practise of medicine and demonstrating an unfitness to practise medicine.

Warraich’s medical licence was previously cancelled in April 2021 for a separate matter involving unethical billing practices and failing to maintain a standard of care.

At a hearing in November, which the Free Press attended and reported on without naming Warraich due to an initial publication ban, the inquiry panel heard he sent disturbing emails to college officials between Jan. 19 and 27, 2021 after he found out the college planned to cancel his licence.

“(Y)ou are my killer and responsible for my death. You tortured me when I was fasting for eighteen hours,” Warraich wrote in a Jan. 20 email to a member of the college’s investigation committee, who can’t be named due to a publication ban on the names of third parties.

The discipline decision states Warraich was observing Ramadan when a college lawyer interviewed him in June 2017. The lawyer “apologized a few times after she was advised Dr. Warraich was observing Ramadan and could not have water.”

In other emails, Warraich called college officials “racist” and referred to three involved in the investigation as “my killers.” In two, he threatened to kill himself.

After one such email, a senior college official reached out to Warraich as she was concerned for his safety and asked him to voluntarily withdraw from his medical practice. Still, the emails kept coming. Warraich was eventually issued an interim suspension.

Asked why he sent the emails, Warraich responded to the college in writing saying he knew officials were trying to revoke his licence and “he found that distressing.” He also claimed the investigation and inquiry proceeding was biased. He said he wrote the emails “because he wanted the CPSM to be aware of his distress, displeasure and belief the process was unfair.”

The decision notes that no allegations of bias or discrimination were raised during a previous hearing that lead to his licence being revoked, nor during a later unsuccessful appeal.

Also addressed at the hearing was a matter involving vaccinations given to Warraich’s infant patient.

The panel heard the baby’s father raised concerns when he noticed the baby’s records listed different vaccinations from what the infant was supposed to have. When the college looked into the matter, it found that while Warraich recorded and billed for certain vaccinations, it’s not clear if all were administered. He also altered the baby’s records after the college started asking questions.

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Warraich eventually told the college: “I am to this day uncertain about what immunizations were given” and “All I can rely on is what I initially included in the chart notes for these two days.”

Warraich was not present at the November hearing but was represented by a lawyer. He did not enter a plea and was not contesting the charges. The college found him guilty of the professional misconduct charges and issued him a reprimand.

This is the third time Warraich has faced a discipline panel. In 2006, he was suspended for two months after he was found to have co-signed prescriptions for patients in the United States whom he had not seen, including some animals. The college also put conditions on his licence. A little over a decade later, an investigation committee found he billed Manitoba Health for examinations of patients he had never seen in personal-care homes and failed to properly diagnose and treat a tuberculosis patient. He also created a “false and misleading” medical record for another patient.

Warraich ran for the PC party in Winnipeg’s Concordia riding in 2011 and lost to the NDP candidate. He also ran and lost for the PCs in Tyndall Park in 2016, even after the party was aware of a previous 2006 suspension and ongoing conditions related to his licence.

katrina.clarke@freepress.mb.ca

Katrina Clarke
Investigative reporter

Katrina Clarke is an investigative reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. Katrina holds a bachelor’s degree in politics from Queen’s University and a master’s degree in journalism from Western University. She has worked at newspapers across Canada, including the National Post and the Toronto Star. She joined the Free Press in 2022. Read more about Katrina.

Every piece of reporting Katrina produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.