A steamy love relationship that blossomed between a doctor and a patient has turned into a bitter fight and found its way to court corridors.
The female doctor (name withheld for legal reasons) started a relationship with a male patient but has now filed a case seeking court’s protection against incessant calls and sharing of her nude photos on social media.
The short love affair has turned the doctor’s life into a nightmare, with her kids traumatised and her marriage damaged beyond repair, she says. Her only hope to pick up the pieces and try rebuilding her family lies with courts, which she is asking for orders to stop further publication of her nude photos and compensation for defamation.
It all started when the man went for treatment for unnamed ailment sometime in 2013. The doctor attended to him. Subsequently, an intimate relationship developed from around May 2014, lasting until October 2015 when the doctor ended it.
The man became hostile after the relationship was ended and he started harassing the doctor, her husband and children. The doctor says the man would show up at her workplace and make a scene in the presence of her colleagues and patients.
“The respondent did, on several occasions, create scenes at the petitioner’s place of work, causing her extreme stress and embarrassment,” suit papers read.
The man is said to have sent several emails to her workplace, copying colleagues and bosses with attachments of photos of the doctor in nude and intimate sexual positions. And when he was blocked from communicating to her boss and denied access to the hospital, he resorted to threatening the head of security.
He then followed her to the new workplace demanding that he be seen by her because she was his doctor. She declined to see him for ethical reasons but that did not deter him as he again resorted to making incessant calls at her office.
As a result, the doctor says she lost her dignity in the eyes of her children, family, friends, colleagues and patients.
“I have suffered emotional injury and torture by the humiliating and frustrating acts of the respondent. Moreover, my professional, family and social life have suffered a blow,” she said in an affidavit sworn in support of the case.
Her children have been traumatised and her relationship with her husband destroyed beyond redemption.
“The psychological torture and torment I have undergone is unbearable and I am presently undergoing therapy to help me cope with the effects of the respondent’s degrading treatment and actions towards me,” the doctor says.
Even after leaving her initial workplace, the man keeps following her and sending numerous emails with attachments of her nude photos.
“The respondent made email communication to the petitioner’s children, two of whom are minor, and disclosed inappropriate information about his relationship with the petitioner,” the suit documents read.
She wants the court to award her compensation for defamation and issue declaration that her fundamental right to protection of her dignity has been violated.
Also sought is an order to declare that the threat to publish her nude photos is unconstitutional. She further wants an order compelling him to delete the phots.
She believes the man does all he does with the sole aim of jeopardising her work as a medical doctor. To support her case, she quoted Section 31 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy.
(Edited by F'Orieny)
