Muslim NHS dentist ‘tried to force patients to wear traditional Islamic dress’

A Muslim NHS dentist faces being struck off after a tribunal ruled he tried to force patients to wear traditional Islamic dress before treating them.

Omer Butt, 32, whose brother Hassan used to be spokesman for the banned radical Muslim group Al Muhajiroun, ordered female patients to wear headscarves and forced men to take off gold jewellery before allowing them into the dentists’ chair.

He even kept a box full of hijabs at his practice so he could lend them to women before checking their teeth.

Butt enforced his religious dress code despite previously being warned by the General Dental Council for the same offence.

The GDC has ruled Butt imposed a general dress code at his practice, the Unsworth Smile Clinic in Bury, Lancashire, for more than two years from April 2005.

Butt was also found to have confrontations with two patients known as Ms B and Mr C and their families during that period.

The panel will now decide what action to take.

“Your evidence was that you regard yourself as a Muslim first and a dentist second and it is clear you were using your position as a dentist to seek to influence patients as to non-clinical issues,” committee chairwoman Gill Brown told the dentist.

“You have explained you had a moral and religious obligation to persuade other Muslims to comply with Islamic requirements.

“The committee is satisfied from all the evidence that your attitude went beyond merely seeking to persuade, request or advise Muslim patients and that you sought to impose the dress code upon them.”

Butt posted a sign on his waiting room wall telling Muslim patients to adhere to his strict code.

NHS managers visited the surgery in April 2005 following complaints from patients and ordered him to abandon the policy or face a formal misconduct hearing.

He removed the sign but persisted with the dress code – getting staff to take Muslim patients into a consultation room and tell them they had to wear the right clothes.

Butg phoned the police when Ms B refused to leave his clinic without a complaint form following a treatment session.

The dentist, from Manchester, told her he did not want to see her again after she brought in her son for emergency work.

During treatment Butt asked the mother if her son prayed and when she said “yes” he gave the boy composite fillings rather than silver ones. Using the precious metal for fillings is frowned upon in Islam.

Mr C made a complaint about Butt after bringing his family to register for NHS treatment at the clinic in June 2007.

The dentist asked the man to tell his wife to wear a headscarf or he would not offer the family any treatment.

Mr C then asked for a copy of the surgery admissions policy to be sent to him – which never happened – then made an official complaint.

The case continues.

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