UK: Non-White Doctor Suspended For Fake Viagra Prescriptions

South Wales Argus
January 31, 2014

Mansoor Mohammed Kassim
Mansoor Mohammed Kassim thought no-one would notice that you don’t prescribe Viagra for a broken leg.

A Doctor given a suspended jail sentence for forging Viagra prescriptions is no longer employed by the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board.

Mansoor Mohammed Kassim is also being investigated by the General Medical Council, with a number of conditions on his practice licence.

The 37-year-old father-of-two was handed an eight-month sentence suspended for 12 months at Newport Magistrates’ Court on January 9.

He was also told he would have to pay back close to £3,000 in compensation and costs to the NHS, after earlier pleading guilty to theft, fraud and forgery.

A spokesman for the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: “Mr Kassim is no longer working for the health board.

“He was working on a temporary contract which was due to end.”

The Argus has previously reported how Kassim used made-up names of doctors and patients to fill out prescriptions for the drug sildenafil, better known as Viagra, while working at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital in Ystrad Mynach.

But staff at Pill Pharmacy in Commercial Road became suspicious as Viagra is not normally a drug prescribed in the trauma and orthopaedic department.

Handwriting analysis showed Kassim had written out the prescriptions,

A spokeswoman for the GMC said: “An investigation is ongoing, but there is no fitness to practice hearing scheduled at present by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS).”

The conditions on his licence prohibit him from prescribing any drugs, among other restrictions.

He must also confine his medical practice to National Health Service posts, where his work is supervised by a consultant.

In court mitigation, his actions were said to be “the most stupid thing he had done in his entire life”.

Kassim, of Ilford in Essex, pleaded guilty to nine counts of theft, forgery and fraud between February 25 and October 24, 2013, at Caerphilly Magistrates’ Court in December, when it was said marital difficulties led him to seek out the medication.

During this hearing, the court heard that Kassim was embarrassed to admit his problem to another doctor and faked the prescriptions.