Doctor accused of abuse suspended again

Toronto physician violated conditions on his licence imposed as result of prior sexual assault

A discipline panel has decided to suspend for a third time a Toronto doctor who was previously found to have sexually abused four female patients in a notorious case that shocked the public and added pressure on the provincial government to change the law.

Dr. Javad Peirovy was a no-show on Friday as the panel found he yet again committed professional misconduct, this time for violating conditions on his licence imposed as a result of his prior sexual abuse.

They included that he only see female patients in the presence of a practice monitor approved by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and that he post a sign making that condition clear in his waiting and examination rooms.

Those conditions were added in 2016 by a different panel after finding Peirovy sexually abused four female patients, by cupping their breasts or tweaking their nipples with no medical reason to do so, while practising at a walk-in clinic.

That panel sparked outrage by letting Peirovy keep his job and handing him a six-month suspension, finding he could improve through counselling. College prosecutors urged the panel to revoke Peirovy’s licence and unsuccessfully fought all the way to the Ontario Court of Appeal to overturn the decision.

Peirovy had also pleaded guilty in criminal court to simple assault on two patients after initially being charged with sexual assault. He received a conditional discharge — meaning no criminal record — and probation.

On Friday, Peirovy was given a seven-month suspension starting Oct. 10 for violating his licence conditions. The decision came following a joint request by college prosecutor Penelope Ng and Peirovy’s lawyer, Michael Alexander, who entered a plea of no contest. The plea means he doesn’t admit guilt, but consents to the panel accepting the allegations as fact.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous; they gave him a month more for not obeying his conditions, instead of the six months they gave him for the four cases of sex abuse,” one of Peirovy’s victims from the 2016 case, Temerra Dixon, told the Star.

“I’m just appalled at the whole thing. I have zero confidence in the college. It is a joke to me, to put it lightly,” she said.

“It’s just been confirmed again today.”

The virtual proceedings Friday morning were delayed as everyone showed up except for the doctor. Alexander told the panel that Peirovy had emailed him 15 minutes prior to the start of the hearing to say he wasn’t feeling well.

“He has been having health problems over the past couple of weeks, and he said he’s suffering from nausea and vertigo this morning and essentially can’t get out of bed,” Alexander said. “So I don’t think he’ll be attending, though he is aware that attendance is required.”

The panel said Peirovy will have to attend at a later date to be publicly reprimanded for his latest finding of professional misconduct, and pay additional costs as a result. “We will not be delivering a reprimand in his absence,” said panel chair Jennifer Scott.

Three female patients reported in 2021 that they each had an appointment with Peirovy at his North York clinic in the absence of the college-approved practice monitor, Ng told the panel. Two other patients said they had had multiple appointments with him and that the monitor would sometimes leave the room, Ng added.

As a result, the college told Peirovy in the fall of 2021 that it was terminating its approval of his practice monitor — barring him from seeing female patients — but Ng said Peirovy then brought on a new monitor without first getting the college’s approval. Peirovy saw about eight female patients in a single day in October 2021 in the presence of that unapproved monitor, Ng said.

The monitor recorded the names of the patients in a log, leaving it in an unlocked office drawer. When Peirovy turned over his patient log for October 2021 to the college, Ng said there were no entries for the day with eight female patients. Peirovy twice denied seeing multiple female patients that day, Ng said, and has never provided a patient log for the day.

The panel was also told that the sign in his waiting room indicating the conditions on his licence was folded on at least two occasions, “so that its contents were not visible,” Ng said. Signs were also not posted in some examination rooms.

Peirovy was also suspended for two months in 2019 by a different panel for “using his medical office to initiate a social relationship with a young female patient” by giving her his personal cell number during a medical appointment. They dated for over a year.

The 2016 suspension for sexual abuse came down at a time when the college was under fire over its handling of physician sexual abuse cases, allowing some of them to continue to practise with conditions, as revealed by a 2014 Star investigation.

Prosecutors appealed to the Divisional Court, where three judges ruled that the discipline committee imposed a “litany of clearly unfit penalties” in sexual abuse cases, and said “they do little to encourage confidence in the committee’s approach to eradicating sexual abuse in the profession.”

It ordered Peirovy to face a new penalty hearing.

But Peirovy appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, where the judges ruled that the six-month suspension should be upheld.

‘‘I’m just appalled at the whole thing.

I have zero confidence in the college. It is a joke to me, to put it lightly.

TEMERRA DIXON VICTIM