A prominent GTA cardiologist won’t be reinstated at William Osler Health System after threatening and cyberstalking a nurse with whom he’d developed “a one-sided obsession.”

And yet despite those serious findings against Dr. Milan Gupta, his profile on the College of Physicians and Surgeons website doesn’t explain why his hospital privileges were revoked nor does it mention any kind of disciplinary investigation.

So his patients are left in the dark.

By all accounts, Gupta is an excellent cardiologist who had an unblemished record until 2010 when his friendly relationship with Nicky Gaidhu, a nurse in the catheterization lab where they both worked, “deteriorated over the ensuing months into a one-sided obsession, disrupting both of their personal and professional lives,” according to a divisional court ruling.

Separated at the time from his wife, Gupta became upset when he learned Gaidhu was getting married.

“He tried to dissuade her from the marriage telling her that she was too young and that she ‘needed to try different flavours of ice cream and cheese,’” according to an earlier ruling by the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board that upheld the hospital’s decision to revoke his privileges. “Following her marriage in May 2011, she tried to distance herself from Dr. Gupta, changing her personal phone number and e-mail address.”

In February, 2012, he handed her a “Dear Nicky” letter that left her frightened for her safety.

“For the first time in my life, I hate someone,” Gupta wrote, according to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board decision. “You have now set in motion a series of consequences. This could have been avoided had you agreed to speak with me. In coming days, certain things will happen that you will not like. However, this is entirely your own doing.”

After she went to the administration, the hospital initially suspended the cardiologist but then agreed to his request for a temporary leave while they investigated. A few weeks later, the inquiry concluded that the letter constituted a threat — “potentially of physical force, but certainly of some form of harm” — under the hospital’s workplace violence prevention policy.

The hospital gave him a chance: Following a written reprimand and his apology to Gaidhu, he could return to work under condition he stay away from her. Five months later, he violated those terms by giving her a birthday card in which he apologized for “losing his way” and said he still cared deeply for her. “I believe that the book of our friendship has many chapters to go.”

Gupta was suspended again. He initially agreed to go for a mental health assessment but after hiring a new lawyer, he went on the offensive and accused Gaidhu of being a “pathological liar.”

At about the same time, she discovered the doctor had also been cyberstalking her — an audit showed that from May 25, 2010 to October 3, 2012, he’d accessed her health records about 29 times. She later told the appeal board that she felt violated and physically threatened now that he knew her new address.

The hospital suspended Gupta’s privileges at Brampton Civic but offered him a position at their Etobicoke site. He refused. At the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, he argued that he should be reinstated, that he’d been depressed at the time but was now recovered and posed no danger to Gaidhu. But the board upheld the hospital’s decision last year, citing a key recommendation from the inquest into the tragic 2005 murder of Windsor nurse Lori Dupont by her anesthesiologist ex-lover: A physician’s right to practise shouldn’t be considered more important than staff safety.

Gupta, who did not respond to a request for comment left for him at his clinic, appealed to the divisional court — and lost again.

“The decision was reasonable and could easily have been made solely on the basis of Ms. Gaidhu’s right to privacy in her medical records and the repeated and flagrant breaches of that right by (Gupta)’s unauthorized access to those records,” wrote Justice Nancy Spies on behalf of the three-member panel.

But where is his college in all this? Shouldn’t they be disciplining the doctor for threatening a nurse and peeking into her confidential records? Shouldn’t patients be aware of his concerning behaviour?

It seems not.

“There is no active investigation involving Dr. Gupta,” says spokesman Kathryn Clarke.

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