Mahesh Reddy’s medical credentials were called into question by detectives but later confirmed as acceptable by the island’s registration body for doctors, according to records released under public access to information.

Dr Reddy, medical director of Bermuda Healthcare Services, which is owned by former premier Ewart Brown, was arrested by police officers after an early-morning raid at his home in May last year but never charged with any offence.

A Supreme Court judge has since ruled that the arrest and search of his home were unlawful.

Dr Reddy told The Royal Gazette yesterday: “The documents [released under Pati] speak for themselves and demonstrate that the police had no good reason to doubt my credentials.”

According to minutes of meetings held by Bermuda Medical Council, police sent the statutory board “specific queries regarding the authenticity of the medical credentials of Dr Mahesh Reddy” not long after his arrest.

The minutes of the council’s meeting on July 14, 2016, reveal that efforts were made to validate the credentials on file for the GP, who was awarded his first-class bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery from Gulbarga University in India in the mid-1990s.

He was registered with Karnataka Medical Council in 1997 and the BMC asked chief medical officer Cheryl Peek-Ball to confirm the council was “authentic and reliable”.

A meeting on August 11 was told that a “review of submitted photocopies of credentials indicate they appear to satisfy criteria for registration” and a meeting the following month, after original documents were reviewed, heard that the registration of Dr Reddy was “confirmed valid”.

Bermuda Police Service was informed of the validity of Dr Reddy’s credentials but the minutes of a later meeting show that detectives met with the BMC chairman, registrations manager and Dr Peek-Ball on October 19, 2016 to “discuss further the process for registration of Dr M Reddy”.

The minutes state: “Police still have concerns about authenticity of educational documents submitted and will pursue this. [Dr Peek-Ball] advised that [the] Ministry [of Health] does not possess resources or expertise to pursue matter further.

“BMC awaits results of the BPS investigation and will follow up accordingly.”

The issue of Dr Reddy’s credentials did not crop up again at the council’s meetings until April this year, according to the records shared with this newspaper.

At that point, it was recorded in the minutes that Bermuda Health Council, a separate regulatory body concerned with healthcare quality, requested the credentials of the physician.

The medical council deferred the decision on whether to share the documents to the health minister.

Later minutes show the credentials were sent to the health council on May 8. The minutes state: “Confirmation was given that the physician was found to have credentials acceptable to BMC for registration in 2016.”

Health council CEO Tawanna Wedderburn, in response to questions from this newspaper, said earlier this year: “The health council routinely writes to statutory bodies to confirm information related to professional registration, which includes confirming whether health professionals meet the registration requirements.

“Our requests are made as part of the annual reporting process of statutory bodies to the health council or as part of routine operational matters. The health council is unable to comment on whether specific requests have been made.”

The medical council disclosed its minutes and copies of Dr Reddy’s credentials, with his permission, under the Public Access to Information Act on July 3.

A separate Pati request, to the health council, for any communication — e-mail, letter or other — between the health council and Dr Peek-Ball about Dr Reddy and Dr Brown since May last year, was rejected. This newspaper has appealed that decision.

Dr Brown has said the arrest of Dr Reddy, for the suspected ordering of unnecessary medical tests, was really part of a “protracted and relentless” campaign against him, which included a long-running police investigation into alleged corruption.

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