By: Akanksha
Nottingham General Practitioner Dr. Balvinder Mehat has been referred to a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing by the General Medical Council (GMC) after being accused of misconduct in relation to the circumcision of a seven year old boy. The procedure was carried out on October 19, 2022 at Bakersfield Medical Centre in Nottingham after the boy, who is of mixed heritage, was brought to the practice by his Zimbabwean mother for “spiritual and cultural reasons.” While the mother wanted the boy circumcised, his separated father did not. In a first for the medical regulator, Dr. Mehat is accused of failing to involve the child in the decision-making process and failing to obtain the father’s consent before performing the procedure, as well as allegedly asking the mother to sign a backdated form after the father complained.
Alan Taylor, representing the GMC, told The Tribunal as reported by BBC that the boy’s parents married in 2019 but were separated by the time their son was circumcised on October 19, 2022. According to Taylor, the boy’s mother, referred to as Miss C, decided for “spiritual and cultural reasons” to have her son circumcised. She provided Dr. Mehat with a copy of the boy’s birth certificate and signed a consent form, but she did not name the father on either document. Taylor stated that the mother “did not provide details about her son’s father’s involvement in the boy’s life, nor in relation to the father’s knowledge about the procedure taking place.”
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Taylor told the hearing that the father, referred to as Mr. B, only found out about the circumcision a few days later while looking after his sin, and he telephoned Dr. Mehat on October 22 to complain. The following day, October 23, the father called Dr. Mehat again to inform him that he had taken his son, referred to as Patient A, to A&E at Royal Derby Hospital in the middle of the night because the boy was “in agony.” Taylor explained that the Plastibell had migrated and an infection had developed at the circumcision site.
Following the father’s complaint, Dr. Mehat is alleged to have asked the mother to sign a disclaimer form for the procedure on October 24, even though the circumcision had already been carried out. He is then alleged to have asked her to sign a further disclaimer form on December 8, which was backdated to October 19.
Mr. B told the hearing that Dr. Mehat should have checked that he had also consented to the procedure. He stated that a doctor “should be more concerned with the child’s welfare and safeguarding, especially when the names are different and the heritage of the child is different from the mother.” He added that because there could be conflicted opinions and differences in opinion on circumcision, Dr. Mehat “should have done more thorough checks.”
The GMC instructed a pediatric surgeon, Simon Clarke, to produce a report regarding Dr. Mehat’s actions. In his report, Clarke stated that if a child presents with only one parent for a circumcision, “the doctor must make every effort to contact the other parent in order to seek consent.” Clarke also stated that children themselves should be involved “as much as possible in decisions around their care.” However, Clarke reported that he had not found any evidence that Patient A’s opinion had been sought on the circumcision, concluding that Dr. Mehat “failed to involve the child in the decision-making process.”
This hearing is the fourth medical tribunal Dr. Mehat has faced. In March 2019, he was suspended for one month when his fitness to practice was determined to be impaired after Nottingham City Council cautioned him for numerous offences related to rental properties he owned. In September 2019, he was suspended for one month because he circumcised a baby without the mother’s consent. At that time, the MPTS decided there was a “very low risk of repetition” and “no risk to patients” by allowing him to continue working.
He was also arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm following the circumcision, but was not prosecuted, a failure that human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal KC called “flawed and irrational.”
Dr. Mehat’s third tribunal took place in December 2024m when he was given a warning for making derogatory comments about Muslim patients.
According to the GMC guidance on religious circumcision, doctors “should get the child’s consent if they have maturity and understanding to give it,” and if not, they “should get consent from all those with parental responsibility.” GMC guidance on treating children also states that children and young people are individuals with rights that should be respected, meaning doctors must listen to them and take into account what they have to say about things that affect them.
It further notes that the patient must be the doctor's first concern and that children need to be protected from harm. Earlier this year, a draft update to GMC guidance on medical procedures performed for religious or cultural reasons removed explicit permissions for doctors to perform medically unnecessary circumcision on children.
Similarly, guidance on non-therapeutic male circumcision from the Britain Medical Association says it “cannot envisage a situation in which it is ethically acceptable to circumcise a child who refuses the procedure irrespective of the parents’ wishes.” It also notes the harm of a person not having the opportunity to choose not to be circumcised or not to follow the traditions of his parents, and says doctors should discuss with parents “the irreversibility of the procedure” and “whether circumcision can be deferred until the child can make his own decision.”
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The National Secular Society (NSS), which campaigns to protect all children from forced genital cutting, welcomed the GMC’s move to take Dr. Mehat to a tribunal. NSS human rights lead Dr. Alejandro Sanchez stated that “medical ethics and child safeguarding norms clearly militate against non-consensual genital surgery performed on boys for religious or cultural reasons.” Commending the GMC for taking Dr. Mehat to tribunal for failing to elicit the child’s views, Dr. Sanchez said the GMC should follow this argument to its logical conclusion, "doctors should defer all decisions about non-therapeutic circumcision until the individual is old enough to provide informed consent, based on his own values.”
(Rh/APC)