PUBLIC reactions to the News & Star’s revelations about Zholia Alemi have continued to pour in through social media websites.

Shocking, unbelievable, speechless.... these are just some of the words readers have used to convey their reaction to a story that has triggered a national debate.

Here just some of your reactions:

  • Nona Eastwood: “So much for checking references.”
  • Bev Riddick: “How many more are doing the same?”
  • Richard Lee Cooper: “They [the patients] deserve compensation for their incompetence [in not] catching her sooner and [for] people getting false treatment.”
  • Dominic Mahon: “Shocking, but my question is: Given she would still be practicing without the fraud being detected, how many people did she actually help in that time. I cant imagine surviving 23 years if you were useless... “she was obviously relatively proficient, even if she never had the paperwork. I don’t condone what she has done, but it does raise questions about how many jobs out there need irrelevant pieces of paper to do them.”
  • Kelly Alder: “Speechless at the failings here... it’s one thing for someone to say that they got a B in GCSE history, when they actually got a C; or to embellish what experience they have in sales, but..... to pass yourself off as being a qualified consultant psychiatrist for 23 years is astonishing!”
  • George Flóki King: “How many people has she illegally sectioned?”
  • Liz Wild: “How did her colleagues not notice?”
  • Tanya Metcalfe: “I suppose after doing it for 23 years she has gotten to know the job, meds, laws, etc, inside and out.”
  • Sue Thwaites: “It just shows what an absolute mess the NHS is in. She has been allowed to work with vulnerable people for 23 years, and she knows nothing about mental health. Unfortunately I don’t think this is one hospital. Sad to say, I think this is nation-wide.”
  • Jules Goldsmith: “If she hadn’t got so greedy, she’d probably have got away with it.”
  • Rachel Lee Douglas: “Considering the state of NHS mental health care, I am completely unsurprised by this.”
  • Shirley Wood: “How on earth did she get away with all the lies for so long?”
  • Sharon Messenger: “Absolutely disgraceful. Someone you trust and she has prescribed medication to vulnerable people.”
  • Stewart McKegg: “She should be made to pay back all her wages.”
  • Damian McAuliffe: “Anyone suddenly retiring, or leaving the country, needs checking out! (Because they’re going to start checking qualifications... at last!)

In the national press, meanwhile, there has been a steady stream of commentators who have expressed their dismay that Alemi got away with her deception for so long.

Several experts have highlighted how the validation system for doctors from Commonwealth countries was more relaxed than that for those coming to the UK from the EU.

Joyce Robins, from Patient Concern, said it seemed ‘incredible’ that someone could slip through the net in this way.

She said: “There needs to be a public inquiry: how many patients will she have come into contact with? Patients will be horrified that the proper checks weren’t in place.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “As the organization responsible for regulating doctors, we expect the GMC to investigate how this criminal was able to register as a doctor and put measures in place to make sure it can’t happen again.”

The charity SANE is offering emotional support to patients affected by Zholia Alemi’s bogus practice. The SANEline number - available from 4:30pm to 10:30pm every day - is 0300 304 7000.

The GMC says the relaxed Commonwealth validation option was discontinued in 2003, and replaced by a far more stringent system of checking qualifications.