The psychiatrist who was key to Schabir Shaik’s release on medical
parole has emerged as a man apparently willing to throw ethics aside for
money or sex.
Dr Abubaker “Abie” Gangat was the lead doctor pushing for Shaik’s release on
medical grounds and was the only medic who testified before the parole board
that approved his discharge on March 3 last year.
The
Mail & Guardian has established that Gangat treated prisoner
Shaik both as a private doctor and as a “visiting psychiatrist” appointed by
prison authorities to service patients from Westville prison.
This would have lent official weight to his submissions to Correctional
Services and the parole board calling for Shaik’s release on medical
grounds.
Now an
M&G investigation has revealed past details that may throw new
light on the credibility of the man who helped Shaik escape from doing
prison time.
Responding to detailed questions from the
M&G, Gangat has denied
acting unethically -- now or in the past -- and said his history was
“unrelated” to his care of his patients, including Shaik.
But evidence collected by the
M&G suggests that in the early 1990s --
during his tenure as professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of
South Africa (Medunsa) outside Pretoria -- Gangat was involved in a number
of scandals that reflect poorly on his integrity.
They include:
- His peripheral involvement in a murder and fraud investigation;
- His inappropriate affair with a young doctor who later overdosed; it
seems his fear of exposure of his affair may have delayed her treatment;
and
- His penchant for soliciting cash donations from pharmaceutical
companies.
The murder case
It has emerged that Gangat was close to Dr Omar Sabadia, the Pretoria
psychiatrist who arranged to have his wife, Zahida, murdered in February
1996 by staging a fake hijacking. Gangat has confirmed he “knew Dr Sabadia
socially”.
Sabadia claimed hijackers had stabbed him and abducted Zahida, but it later
emerged that his wounds were superficial and that he had hired the killers.
He is serving a 50-year jail term.
Two sources involved in the investigation have claimed that Gangat played a
role in having Sabadia admitted to or sedated in hospital despite his
insignificant injuries, thus shielding him from questioning in the crucial
period following Zahida’s disappearance.
Gangat failed to respond directly, stating only: “Dr Sabadia was never my
patient ... Although I visited him in hospital I did not examine him and
could not express a medical opinion about the extent of his injuries.”
A
Star newspaper report at the time stated that police wished to
interview Gangat, but that he had left the country the day before Sabadia
confessed and led investigators to his wife’s body.
Gangat told the
M&G he had travelled to Pakistan in March 1996 to
attend the Cricket World Cup and a medical congress: “This trip was planned
well in advance and in no way related to the investigation against Dr
Sabadia.”
The report also linked Gangat to a parallel fraud investigation being
carried out into Sabadia’s practice. Sabadia was accused of submitting
fraudulent medical aid claims. The report described Gangat as a partner in
the Sabadia practice.
Gangat has told the
M&G he was “most certainly never” a partner in
Sabadia’s practice but, “from time to time and at irregular intervals”,
acted as a locum.
He said he had no insight into Sabadia’s financial affairs and was not
involved in claims the practice submitted to medical aids.
However, the
M&G has a copy of a draft letter dated December 13 1994
that includes Gangat’s name on the Sabadia practice letterhead. The draft,
apparently annotated by Gangat, makes a stout defence of the practice in
response to a fax from a medical aid accusing the practice of
“over-servicing”.
The suicide
Evidence obtained by the
M&G has raised disturbing questions
about Gangat’s relationship with a young and psychologically fragile doctor
on his staff and the role he played in events surrounding her suicide.
During the affair it appears Dr Veronika Cernochova was effectively a
student, employee and patient of Gangat, a married man.
Gangat told the
M&G his personal relationship with Cernochova was a
“private matter”. He said Cernochova was “never my patient” and for that
reason “my interaction with Dr Cernochova cannot constitute unethical or
unprofessional conduct”.
The Pharma cash cows
Information obtained by the
M&G suggests that Gangat, while
working at Medunsa, adopted a pattern of soliciting payments from drug
companies to attend conferences or to fund his proposed book on psychosis.
These requests Gangat combined asking companies for a “generous donation”
with an emphasis on the fact that he promoted their products.
For instance, on June 19 1991 Gangat wrote to the manager of Sandoz,
requesting funding to attend a conference in Hamburg in September 1991 on
suicide prevention. He noted the cost would be R14 000 and stated: “It is my
intention to publicly acknowledge any sponsorship that I receive. I wish to
add that I prescribe your products Bellergal, Leponex, Melleril and Etomine,
which I have found not only beneficial for selected patients but also safe
and devoid of any serious side effects.”
With regard to his self-published book,
Psychosis and Its Management,
Gangat issued multiple solicitations. For example on March 17 1992 he wrote
to Mr P Zwemstra of Smith Kline Beecham, enclosing chapters of his draft and
stating: “You will note that your product Strelazine features prominently.
Further, I strongly recommend your product, very often as first-line
treatment.”
He asked for R5 000 to R10 000 to enable him to publish the book. Letters on
similar lines, suitably amended, were sent out to a raft of other drug
companies.
In one case, brought to the attention of the
M&G by a former
colleague who did not want to be named, Gangat is alleged to have tried to
secure funding from multiple companies for the same conference, although one
company had already agreed to cover his costs.
In 1994 Steve Maritz, then a pharmaceutical marketing manager, withdrew
funding to Gangat after initially agreeing to sponsor all costs of the trip.
Maritz discovered Gangat had written to numerous other drug companies,
requesting funding for the same expenses.
Maritz, now retired, confirmed the essential facts of the allegation. It is
alleged that in one case Gangat had asked for a cheque to be made out to him
personally “to avoid it going through all those committees”.
Gangat told the
M&G that requests for funding were made “in
accordance with acceptable practice at the time”.
“I most certainly was never censured by the Health Professions Council or
for that matter by the university.”
How Gangat helped Shaik
Dr Abubaker Gangat was brought in to treat Schabir Shaik for stress and
depression when he was transferred from prison to St Augustine’s private
hospital in November 2006 because of persistent high blood pressure.
On February 7 2007 Gangat wrote to Correctional Services to advise that
Shaik’s stay in St Augustine’s should be extended because Shaik posed “a
severe suicide risk”. He said Shaik had told him: “I believe that I would be
better off dead than alive.”
That letter was leaked to the media, dampening public criticism of Shaik’s
lengthy hospital stay.
In May 2008 Gangat submitted a medical dossier to Sarel Marais, the medical
manager of Westville prison -- and the man who had appointed him as
“visiting psychiatrist” for prison patients. Shaik was at that time being
treated at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli hospital and Gangat again advised that
he should “continue to be managed in a tertiary institution”, claiming the
prison’s high-care unit could not provide emergency care. Gangat’s covering
letter emphasised Shaik’s “deteriorating medical condition” and summarised
the specialist medical reports that were attached, with at least one notable
exaggeration.
Gangat claimed Shaik’s high blood pressure had already damaged his kidneys,
when the clinical evidence disclosed no such thing, but rather “minimal
narrowing” of the renal artery that was “not significant” and kidney
function that was normal. He suggested Shaik be released on medical grounds
and do “community service”.
Gangat’s dossier formed an important part of the material considered for
Shaik’s medical parole -- granted only to prisoners in the final stages of a
terminal illness -- and the psychiatrist was the only doctor to give formal
evidence to the parole board that approved his release in March 2009.
Gangat told the
M&G: “I generally do not hesitate to act and support
all of my patients, regardless of creed or colour, to the best of my ability
and in what I believe to be their best interests.”
With acknowledgements to
Sam Sole, Stefaans Brummer, Ilham Rawoot and Mail and Guardian.
Just the type of professional whose file that
the other arch professional Moe would have found, and loved finding very
much indeed, in the Compromised Arseholes filing cabinet at
the National Intelligence Service, right next to Mokotedi Mpshe's file.
After getting the word from Shell House to Do Whatever It Takes, it
was all a downhill ride of wonga and nookie.
On a less serious note, this doctor professor carpetbagging arsehole needs
to go back to Westville Prison with his patient mate Schabir, this time as
prisoners for a period of not less than 12 years.
Schabir will still be alive in 12 years time to make it out of the pen.