The long medical career of Andrés Soto Joffe Bernaldo de Queiros began to unravel in 2021. A patient filed a claim with Servizo Galego de Saúde (Sergas) against this doctor who treated her at the Padrón Health Center (A Coruña), to which were added the complaints of two other women. Soto Goff, who was then director of the Spanish Society of Primary Care Physicians (SEMERGEN) in Galicia, was accused of groping and insulting in his office and was later judicially investigated for alleged sexual assault testified by two other patients. He resigned from his position at Semergen and gave up his position in public health, but has now resurfaced at Emergency Health Service 061. His outstanding accounts due to complaints raising doubts about his treatment of women have not been fully settled.
The criminal procedure was provisionally dismissed on July 17 by the Investigative Court No. 2 of Padrón, sources from the Supreme Court of Shusteza in Galicia reported, but the court’s decision has been appealed by the complainants’ defense and the decision is awaited. The administrative filing initiated by Sergas in May 2021 is also still pending. When the court case was opened after a complaint from two patients, the internal procedure at Sergas was interrupted. At the time, the inspector who instructed him had just signed off on a proposed decision: a four-year and 11-month suspension for his treatment of three patients between 2019 and 2020 (two of whom were criminal complainants). The coach noted “aggression” and “recklessness” in Soto-Goff’s behavior and identified four offences, one very serious and three serious.
Patients recounted, both before Sergas and in court, incidents in consultation over which they felt “angry”. They claimed that the doctor suddenly stripped them of their clothes with his hands without asking permission, that he spoke to them in a rude manner, and that he touched them in a way that was not even consistent with the symptoms they reported. They also talked about the difficulties they felt in reporting, as they had been warned at the health center that their complaints would come with names and titles by the accused, and that they feared they would not be believed because part of the events had occurred in the consultation without witnesses. One of the women who took the case to court said: “He inserted his fingers into my vagina without gloves, and I felt pain.” He felt another patient’s breasts and pubic area, even though her condition was mild diarrhea. The complainants stated that they knew that there was a greater number of people affected by word of mouth among the users of the Padron Health Centre, who warned each other to be careful with this doctor.
Soto Joffe’s lawyer, Evaristo Nogueira, confirms that the judicial file awaiting appeal is based on four “very clear” forensic reports concluding that “there was no malpractice” in his care of the complainants; that the medical examination he conducted of them “scrupulously respected the law of art”; The psychological consequences suffered by the complainants “have nothing to do” with the doctor’s actions. Nogueira also adds that administrative files “usually decline if the criminal proceeding is archived.”
The private prosecution brought by the complainants appealed the ruling to drop the criminal case. He argues that their statements represent “a solid structure in terms of probability, internal consistency and consistency over time”, and this despite the fact that they acted separately and “without knowing each other before”. “His evidence meets the same pattern of conduct on the part of the person investigated, which enhances its incriminating value,” the appeal argues. Three other patients reported similar incidents that “constitute a pattern of behavior that goes beyond anecdote,” recalls her lawyer, Enrique Leon.
The special accusation against Soto-Goff also dismisses that the order issuing the dismissal “discounts” the two psychological reports – one of them from a public organization, the Centro Information de Molleres de Padrón – that link the illnesses of one of the complainants to what happened during the consultation. The forensic report, which does not reveal diseases despite being prepared by a “general physician, without specialization in clinical psychology,” is mostly prevalent.
He was not dismissed by counseling
Given the reintegration of Soto Goff a few days ago into the Galician public health system, the Ministry of Health, when asked by this newspaper, claims that it has a “duty to maintain confidentiality about this process” and merely points out that the doctor “is not currently providing care to patients.” According to internal sources on number 061, the doctor joined the service in mid-November and answers questions over the phone. On Wednesday, the PSdeG-PSOE party registered an initiative in the Galician Parliament asking Xunta for clarifications of Soto-Goff’s relationship with Cergas. The Socialists consider its return to cause “unavoidable concern for the safety, dignity and trust of users.”
Soto-Goff stopped providing consultations at Padron’s outpatient clinic when the lawsuit against him broke, but not because of the Department of Health’s decision to remove him. The Santiago District Health Department then admitted to this newspaper that the doctor was no longer working, and although he avoided revealing the reason, he admitted that it was not due to complaints made by his patients.
Souto Goff was director of the Galician delegation in Semergen and was professor at the Chair of Medical Education which this scientific society shares with the University of Santiago. He worked in the emergency room of the Galician Capital Hospital for almost 20 years, and before Padron, he worked in health centers in the A Coruña municipalities of Arzua and Tordoya.