An NHS dietitian’s role is under review after she prescribed yoga for a 91-year-old Parkinson’s sufferer, extolled the health benefits of listening to Classic FM, and advised patients to chew each mouthful of food 32 times.
Aparna Srivastava raised eyebrows for her baffling medical advice and even told one patient to eat a particular type of cookie from Lidl.
Ms Srivastava lasted four months in her locum role at an NHS healthcare practice in Hull, East Yorkshire, before bizarre emails sent to a colleague raised concerns about her fitness to handle patients.
Her emails claimed that taking a whole lime in warm water is ‘1,000 times’ a more effective cancer treatment than chemotherapy, and three spoonfuls of virgin coconut oil every morning could keep cancer at bay.
Her case came before the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) who imposed a two-year conditions of practice order ‘focused on further training and supervision’.
When that order elapsed, she was suspended for six months and has today been suspended for a further six months while her position is under review.
The panel heard that in her short spell at the NHS practice, Miss Srivastava advised Patient A, without providing appropriate clinical justification, to take apple cider vinegar, but only the specific brands Bragg or Aspall.
The patient was also advised to drink eight glasses of tepid water per day and to chew each mouthful of food 32 times before swallowing it.
NHS dietician Aparna Srivastava’s role is under review after she prescribed yoga for a 91-year-old Parkinson’s sufferer, extolled the health benefits of listening to Classic FM, and advised patients to chew each mouthful of food 32 times
The 91-year-old cancer patient was told to try Sahaja Yoga, which was founded by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi in 1970 with the aim of achieving ‘thoughtless awareness and self-realisation by awakening inner Kundalini energy’.
She further told him to try root vegetables, to drink lemon ginger juice, Manuka honey and black pepper in hot water in the morning, to drink kefir daily and to use the grated rind of unwaxed lemons to eradicate a bad taste in the mouth.
The panel found: ‘The Registrant considered that this patient was able, with the assistance of family and technology, to undertake this form of yoga without the need to travel a great distance for an instructor-led class… there was in fact no information in the notes that would allow a fellow clinician to understand what and why this recommendation had been made for this particular patient.’
In the case of another patient, she recommended ‘drink warm water on rising, and before meals’ and ‘listen to Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia flute music’.
She explained to the panel that she recommended the Chaurasia as a means of reducing stress, the same reason she prescribed Classic FM to another patient first thing at night and last thing in the evening.
The HCPTS panel ruled: ‘The Panel considered specifically recommending Classic FM (without explanation or clinical reasoning), did fall below the standards but it was not so serious as to constitute misconduct because, not least, it carried no clear risk of patient harm.
‘It found the statutory ground of lack of competence made out. This was another example of the Registrant providing nonstandard advice, with no explanation or clinical reasoning around it.’
Ms Srivastava was also found to have recommended pearl barley, which contains gluten, to a patient suffering coeliac disease – the chronic autoimmune condition where eating gluten can cause the immune system to damage the small intestine’s lining.
She was also found to have recommended fizzy drinks to patients with conditions unsuitable for digesting them.
Her stint as Locum Dietitian within the East Riding Community Dietitian team at City Health Care Partnership came to an end in February 2018 when she emailed another member of the team, known as Colleague C.
In the email, she said that cancer does not spread without sugar and will die on its own without sugar.
She said taking a full lime in warm water is 1,000 times more effective than chemotherapy and taking three spoons of organic or virgin coconut oil in the early morning will keep cancer at bay.
Ms Srivastava lasted four months in her locum role at an NHS healthcare practice in Hull, East Yorkshire, before bizarre emails sent to a colleague raised concerns about her fitness to handle patients
The alarmed colleague reported her to superiors and an enquiry was launched.
Ms Srivastava claimed that she was passing on the message to her colleague to highlight bad advice relating to cancer treatment that she had been sent by a third party. This claim was rejected by the practice.
The HCPTS found: ‘The content of the WhatsApp message was accepted by the Registrant as not being good advice. She told the Panel that she had a conversation with Colleague C in which she had informed her that she had concerns about this advice relating to cancer that was being spread amongst patients. It was this concern that had led to her forwarding the WhatsApp message to Colleague C.
‘The Panel heard from Colleague C that this was not the basis on which she understood the WhatsApp had been sent and she did not recall any previous conversation with the Registrant on this topic. She believed that this WhatsApp message was the Registrant advocating that others follow this advice on nutritional ways of treating cancer.’
