A former Nova Scotia physician who now practises in New Brunswick has been charged with sexual assault after allegedly assaulting a patient during an emergency room assessment at the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre in January. 

In a release Thursday, Nova Scotia RCMP said Dr. Sanjeev Sirpal has been charged with sexual assault in relation to the alleged incident at the hospital near Amherst.

The release said RCMP believe there may be more victims and are encouraging any survivors to come forward to police.

Police say Sirpal was arrested on Aug. 14 and has since been released on conditions ahead of his first appearance in Amherst provincial court on Nov. 15.

Sirpal has been previously employed in Quebec and is now in New Brunswick, the RCMP said.

According to the registry for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick (CPSNB), Sirpal has been registered to practise in the province since March 14. His office address in the registry is Edmundston Regional Hospital. He specializes in family medicine.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, New Brunswick’s health authority said Sirpal’s clinical work is on hold until the conclusion of the legal process.

Sirpal’s registration comes with two conditions:

He can only conduct “intimate examinations” of a patient’s sexual organs or breasts, regardless of gender, with a chaperone present. 

He must explain to the patient, with the chaperone present, why he is conducting the examination and include documentation of what was discussed and the identity of the chaperone in his chart. 

These were put in place on March 14, five months before Sirpal was charged in Nova Scotia. The New Brunswick college says these conditions were not related to the alleged January incident.

In a statement Thursday to CBC News, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia said Sirpal does not hold a licence to practise in Nova Scotia.

The college said it learned of the charges against Sirpal on Wednesday. It has requested court documents outlining the charges against him and will then decide what action it can take.

It said Sirpal was licensed by CPSNB and had been practising in New Brunswick since 2022. In 2023, Sirpal applied to opt into the Atlantic Registry so he could practise in Nova Scotia without a further licence application, said the Nova Scotia college.

“The Atlantic Registry allows fully licensed physicians in any of the Atlantic provinces greater mobility throughout the region without having to apply for licensure in each province,” said Dr. Gus Grant, registrar and CEO of the Nova Scotia college.

In March 2025, however, the college said it was advised by the New Brunswick college that Sirpal has been removed from the registry due to conditions placed on his licence in New Brunswick that made him ineligible for regional licensure.

“As such, Dr. Sirpal was no longer permitted to practise in Nova Scotia,” Grant said.

Licence to practise in Quebec revoked

In 2022, Sirpal’s licence to practise in Quebec was revoked by the Quebec College of Physicians after they ruled that he had lied on his 2019 application to the college. The college said Sirpal knowingly omitted information about past academic misconduct that resulted in his dismissal from the University of Miami in 2008.

In his defence, Sirpal argued that because of limitations on the application, he believed he was not required to provide information on post-secondary studies that took place before he graduated from the School of Medicine at Spartan Health Sciences University in St. Lucia in 2013.

According to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, Sirpal received a full licence to practise in Atlantic Canada in 2023, but was removed from their registry in March of this year at his request

He is no longer licensed to practise medicine in Nova Scotia.

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