A paediatrician working for the Andalucian health service (SAS) in Vera has been arrested after his superiors discovered she had faked his medical qualifications and has since attempted suicide.
D.R.C., born in Garrucha but raised elsewhere in Spain, returned to her home province some years ago and was accredited as a doctor by the SAS. She was assigned a post at Huercal Overa hospital, where she worked as a Resident doctor in the paediatrician ward, and also duties at Vera health clinic. She also worked privately at Los Arcos de San Javier hospital in Murcia.
The Murcia job was her undoing – a colleague spotted she was using the credentials of another doctor in Murcia city and warned the Murcia guild of doctors, who opened an investigation.
The Murcia guild contacted the national Ministry of Health which opened a complaint with the Prosecutor General, and the investigation quickly established that D.R.C. had dropped out of medical training at Seville university with no qualifications, and had faked all her credentials.
D.R.C. has been suspended from all duties in Murcia and Andalucia during the investigation and Murcia has barred her from practising medicine in the province.
Her colleagues in Huercal Overa and Vera were astounded by the arrest saying that she was a lovely person. She was a popular local doctor who organised several conferences in the area, including one in Vera in 2008 where she explained common children’s problems to new parents.
The suspension and arrest came last week, and D.R.C. was found “in a coma” in her flat earlier this week by a friend after a suspected overdose and remains under guard at a local hospital, according to La Opinion de Murcia newspaper.
It’s the second scandal involving a health service paediatrician in the area after the Pulpí doctor earlier in the year was discovered to be a prolific paedophile and fled back to his native Colombia where he was eventually arrested.