Police arrest fake doctor who had worked in at least three Catalan medical centers

A fake doctor who is known to have worked in at least three Catalan medical centers was arrested by Mossos d'Esquadra police officers Monday evening in the central Catalonia city of Vic.

The 30-year-old woman was employed at the Hospital de Berga for seven months and had also previously worked at Barcelona's Hospital Universitari Dexeus and a clinic in Girona as well as at a health prevention services company.

In Berga, the woman drew up medical reports and signed them with another doctor's digital signature and medical board number.

She also forged proof of payment for a medical degree at the University of Girona.

Police have accused her of four counts of professional intrusion, falsifying a public document, and usurping the identity of another individual.

The arrest comes less than a week after the hospital in Berga filed a police report stating that someone without medical training had been working in the emergency room since December 2022. 

The hospital was alerted to this situation by the health prevention services company the woman had also worked at, and police were able to find out that she was not in possession of a Spanish or foreign university degree.

When the Hospital de Berga asked for her degree during the recruitment process, she provided them with a screenshot of a medical board number and images of herself in scrubs.

She was hired on the condition of providing the documents physically, which she was not able to do, and was suspended when the hospital discovered she was not in the Col·legi de Metges medical association database. 

The Hospital de Berga has since admitted to "important irregularities" in the hiring process and says the woman was supervised at all times by other professionals as she claimed to have only graduated in 2022. 

Both the Hospital de Berga and Hospital Universitari Dexeus have filed complaints against her as police continue to investigate whether she could have also worked at other medical centers.