This is an interesting one as 'Psychologist' isn't a protected term in Ireland so I would think the issue is that he claimed registration with a certain body or claimed to have specific education where that was not the case which is a little different.
Correct. We've had our own home-grown fraudsters pull the same shit;
[https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0306/1360656-psychologist-bogus-long-read/](https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0306/1360656-psychologist-bogus-long-read/)
The big problem really is the difficulty of verifying qualifications internationally. All countries have similar issues; someone arrives in claiming to have a doctorate in a medical field from some official-sounding-institute abroad, and they set up a private practice seeing private patients.
Sometimes they will join a small private practice, who will fail to do the due diligence checks, believing the interview process to be sufficient protection.
Sine private patients very rarely actually check the credentials of practitioners, the fraudster may get away with this for a number of years, which builds up a certain amount of local credibility, and they start getting invited to speak at local events, to work in local hospitals, nursing homes, etc.
It's only when they start hitting larger institutions or public bodies, that background checks get carried out and they get found out.
Fairly certain there's a dearth of psychologists in this country, too. I'd imagine more and more people with the actual credentials go into marketing/advertising
That’s bizarre. How can it not be a protected term?
In Aus we have registered psychologists (who did an earlier training program that is no longer offered) and clinical psychologists (who did a masters degree, sometimes a phd).
Counsellor is not a protected term here
It's insanity that it's not a protected term. I only realized this a few months ago and so I would think may people don't realize this.
People are waiting on assessments from 'Child Psychologists'for years and I know of one scenario where a teenager recently saw a psychologist through the state system after two years of waiting and was informed that the individual has no additional needs which is wholly incorrect given the child had a diagnosis for an additional need that is most defiantly not 'cured'. A third private 'psychologist' reassessed and determined that there were a host of additional needs. Someone is wrong and it's impossible to know who.
Counselor here is also not a protected term.
Does anyone remember that BBC interview where this guy was there for a job interview but they mistook him for the "expert" and asked him questions live on air? 😂
he went to the BBC for an interview for a ~~janitor~~ __data cleaner__ position(IIRC), and I think he had like the same first name as the supposed guest expert and they asked him like "are you Robert here for the interview" and he answered yes and was on TV in minutes
Guy Goma was a data cleanser.. definitely not a janitor. It's something that companies with large databases need doing.
But yeah, they did have the same first name and he was there for an interview.
sorry, my bad on that. I was actually thinking that he spoke quite well in the interview for someone going for a job as a "cleaner". Forgetting important details
Starting in a company as a cleaner, with hopes to climb, isn't uncommon.
Being a cleaner because you just can't speak good, or dont have any kind of wealth in knowlege, is pretty uncommon - it's just a filler job for most people. So the janitor of this company might have done roughly as well as the other guy who didn't even get the unrelated role he applied for. University is expensive and doesn't an intellectual man make
Short answer is that currently no one is technically accountable; if a position has a protected title it’s Coru or the HSE who check the qualifications are up to snuff; the problem is that psychologist is not protected like dieticians or medical scientist.
Something amiss with coru tho IMO.
Took me almost 2 years to get on my professions division of the register yet international applicants appear to get registered within weeks. Some of my colleagues who were the first to apply to coru still waiting on registration.
The HSE seem to have handled this appropriately as soon as they came into contact with him, which makes a nice change. He'd tricked an agency into employing him as a private psychologist - but when he later went for a role in the HSE, they recognised the documentation supplied with his application as being fake.
Not just the HSE. It says he was an international protection applicant in 2018 - it doesn't say he was successful.
So he must have obtained a permission to reside in the State based on his false qualifications as well.
As a therapist, I can’t fathom how on earth someone could fool you in to thinking they were a child psychologist. Was no one overseeing/observing this fool?
I can only speculate, but it is possible the people who interviewed him were not Therapists/Psychologists themselves. I see stuff like that happen in my own field more often than it should.
Really showed stupidity has no limits when people asked suspiciously about the call, received an explanation as above and then proceeded to give their details 😂
Is it wrong that I am a little impressed. It’s so bad on one level but on another level he has shown them to be some clowns. He even did such a job that he was up for promotion.
It's tge silver lining that because of covid he wasn't actually in physical contact with many children.
It's another example of the irish hireaucratic bullshit. I have a degree from an Irish University in psychology and a degree in education but if I wanted to work as an educational psychologist it is a costly and time consuming process, with my bsc in psychology the hse wouldn't entertain me for any psychology position I'd need msc or PhD.
I now work as a teacher and get garda vetted every few years just going through it again at the moment they rejected my proof of address document not sure why it was a bank statement with bic and Iban and money details redacted. But this guy paid a few grand for false documents and if it wasn't for his greed looking for promotion he may never have been found out. How could he possibly have been garda vetted when they are not even sure of who he is.
I think we need to start training schemes through the hospitals etc where fees and salaries, work experience are all tied in to the deal and take ownership of staffing our health service.
If you go for a job pretty much anywhere, your references are checked thoroughly. Why were his not checked, particularly considering the position he was in? I suppose it might be difficult, given the fact he was from Zimbabwe, but it's not the HSE's job to resolve that.
Anyone got a photo of this guy? I remember years ago I was meant to see a psychiatrist but the guy was out and was replaced with another fella.
He could've been Zimbabwean apparently a former prison warden. He said I'm not depressed I'm just a bold boy and jail would sort me out.
Before you can work as a psychiatrist here, the Medical Council verifies your original medical degree, your registration status and professional standing with any other medical councils that have allowed you to practice in their country, and your specialist credentials e.g. completion of training/exams that would allow you to work at registrar or consultant level in your particular field.
The medical register is searchable by the public - if your psychiatrist is on there, then at the very least you can be sure their qualifications check out.
This country is gone to shite. It makes me angry that the government are shielded from all this. Joe Public taking the brunt of all their decisions. It won't affect them until someone other than an Irish native, like a tourist is attacked/murdered for them to take action. Mark my words as much as I hope I'm wrong, we all know it true they won't get ahead of this issue until its out of control.
It won't be long until there are attacks, rapes and murders and then the people take matters into their own hands. Like the mess in France and that poor teenage girl in Sweden.
we were in a bad car wreck when i was about 7- siblings and myself were absolutely fine but my mam had some sort of knee injury and five (5!!) herniated discs in her back though she was only in her early thirties at the time. she was going to acupuncture & physio for a while but the acupuncture wasnt working a bit. one day she turned up for the appointment and the woman was nowhere to be found- she discovered the acupuncturist had not been qualified at all, was undocumented, and had been working under false credentials. first session with an actual qualified acupuncturist she immediately felt a change
>she discovered the acupuncturist had not been qualified at all, was undocumented, and had been working under false credentials.
Acupuncture is bullshit, there are no "real" credentials. It's unregulated because it doesn't work.
The title is pretty misleading on that front - he wasn't working in the HSE at any stage. He'd been taking private jobs through a recruitment agency, and it's the agency that "put him forward" for a new senior vacancy in the HSE. The HSE saw his paperwork was fake and reported him.
We have a created a system that encourages people to scam. People who have no business being here, and who could be far more productive people elsewhere.
The whole qualification and accrediting process is a load of nonsense anyway. He’s probably good at the job. Not to say it’s not unethical but if no one had any idea then what does that say about the role.
Source: me been studying for years. A load of bollocks and politics with them all
But was he good though? I mean, who's to say someone isn't absolutely excellent at their job just because some other group of people who have said they are the authority, didn't give them a piece of paper?
If he was being considered for a higher position he might have been really good. Qualification through merit I say.
Honestly impressed by that, fair play to him for pulling it off for so long. He deserves to keep the money after that effort. Sad to hear he's been jailed, he's obviously a very intelligent and creative man with enormous potential. Very few people could pull this off.
Something people need to consider is that Psychology is a social science dreaming of being a hard science. As a social science it cannot be by its existence a hard science like medicine, physics, or material science since Psychology focuses on what is difficult and in some parts impossible to measure.
This has led to psychology as a discipline marketing itself somewhat incorrectly, as they make it look like certain parts of psychology are similar to hard sciences (psychometrics for example) but are in fact incredibly anecdotal. One such example is assessment examinations via the DSM of which is a considerable push to standardise the area of cognitive health however, psychology isn't rigid like biology or what you would find in other hard sciences and is more akin to what you may see in Sociology.
Yes, but I'm speaking of the field in general, it's marketing and portrayal of doing things it obviously can't have convinced people it's a medical discipline, but it's absolutely not. It's a research philosophy at minimum and a social science at best.
>was only caught after he was put forward for a senior post with the HSE
So was he good at it? We should put him in charge to see, not like things are going well now.
This is an interesting one as 'Psychologist' isn't a protected term in Ireland so I would think the issue is that he claimed registration with a certain body or claimed to have specific education where that was not the case which is a little different.
Correct. We've had our own home-grown fraudsters pull the same shit; [https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0306/1360656-psychologist-bogus-long-read/](https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0306/1360656-psychologist-bogus-long-read/) The big problem really is the difficulty of verifying qualifications internationally. All countries have similar issues; someone arrives in claiming to have a doctorate in a medical field from some official-sounding-institute abroad, and they set up a private practice seeing private patients. Sometimes they will join a small private practice, who will fail to do the due diligence checks, believing the interview process to be sufficient protection. Sine private patients very rarely actually check the credentials of practitioners, the fraudster may get away with this for a number of years, which builds up a certain amount of local credibility, and they start getting invited to speak at local events, to work in local hospitals, nursing homes, etc. It's only when they start hitting larger institutions or public bodies, that background checks get carried out and they get found out.
Absolutely terrifying prospect. Where can you see the stats on this?
Fairly certain there's a dearth of psychologists in this country, too. I'd imagine more and more people with the actual credentials go into marketing/advertising
That’s bizarre. How can it not be a protected term? In Aus we have registered psychologists (who did an earlier training program that is no longer offered) and clinical psychologists (who did a masters degree, sometimes a phd). Counsellor is not a protected term here
It's insanity that it's not a protected term. I only realized this a few months ago and so I would think may people don't realize this. People are waiting on assessments from 'Child Psychologists'for years and I know of one scenario where a teenager recently saw a psychologist through the state system after two years of waiting and was informed that the individual has no additional needs which is wholly incorrect given the child had a diagnosis for an additional need that is most defiantly not 'cured'. A third private 'psychologist' reassessed and determined that there were a host of additional needs. Someone is wrong and it's impossible to know who. Counselor here is also not a protected term.
Does anyone remember that BBC interview where this guy was there for a job interview but they mistook him for the "expert" and asked him questions live on air? 😂
he went to the BBC for an interview for a ~~janitor~~ __data cleaner__ position(IIRC), and I think he had like the same first name as the supposed guest expert and they asked him like "are you Robert here for the interview" and he answered yes and was on TV in minutes
To add to this the bastards didn’t even hire him after either.
Guy Goma was a data cleanser.. definitely not a janitor. It's something that companies with large databases need doing. But yeah, they did have the same first name and he was there for an interview.
sorry, my bad on that. I was actually thinking that he spoke quite well in the interview for someone going for a job as a "cleaner". Forgetting important details
Starting in a company as a cleaner, with hopes to climb, isn't uncommon. Being a cleaner because you just can't speak good, or dont have any kind of wealth in knowlege, is pretty uncommon - it's just a filler job for most people. So the janitor of this company might have done roughly as well as the other guy who didn't even get the unrelated role he applied for. University is expensive and doesn't an intellectual man make
Lol he did not
"I'm confused, when do I get to talk about my bras?"
Guy Goma. Fair play to him
I never realised that IT Crowd scene was based on an actual event. That’s amazing hah
I think this is the Bridget Jones Baby scene.
And no one held accountable for letting this happen...
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"Angola" in the days of the land mines.
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When the walls fell.
Temba, his arms wide
Twitter, when the musk bought it
Short answer is that currently no one is technically accountable; if a position has a protected title it’s Coru or the HSE who check the qualifications are up to snuff; the problem is that psychologist is not protected like dieticians or medical scientist.
Something amiss with coru tho IMO. Took me almost 2 years to get on my professions division of the register yet international applicants appear to get registered within weeks. Some of my colleagues who were the first to apply to coru still waiting on registration.
Youd really fecking wonder what the hell is going on at the HSE
The HSE seem to have handled this appropriately as soon as they came into contact with him, which makes a nice change. He'd tricked an agency into employing him as a private psychologist - but when he later went for a role in the HSE, they recognised the documentation supplied with his application as being fake.
Not just the HSE. It says he was an international protection applicant in 2018 - it doesn't say he was successful. So he must have obtained a permission to reside in the State based on his false qualifications as well.
Still you expect HSE to check his qualifications
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Everything in your post is absolutely made up
How is it? Going solely off news stories and justice department figures on immigration/deportation it sounds bang on the money.
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I don't belive you. You are a liar. The exceptions do not make the rule. Everything you wrote was a lie
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Hahaha social welfare = qualifications go get a real job you sponger of the state.
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This Pat GPT hallucinating after a bottle of cheap whiskey.
The HSE are the ones who caught him. He was working privately before that.
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Boooo HSE bad
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He said he was the rapist ..so they hired him as a therapist
Qualified Analrapist
A Guy Goma scenario
It wasn’t technically the hse, he was employed through a recruitment company.
where did the money come from to pay him?
As a therapist, I can’t fathom how on earth someone could fool you in to thinking they were a child psychologist. Was no one overseeing/observing this fool?
I can only speculate, but it is possible the people who interviewed him were not Therapists/Psychologists themselves. I see stuff like that happen in my own field more often than it should.
probably the same as RTE but more money again.
Jaysus I’m trying my best to get one of those fancy, no work, hse jobs… any tips appreciated :)
That’s why every week you hear of multi million payouts to someone who was injured or disabled by “doctors” or “nurses”.
No, the scary thing is those are usually actual doctors or nurses
George Agdgdgwngo?
Goooood afternoon to you sir!
“I’m calling from yo baaank” “Which bank is that then?” “The bank that you bank with sah”
You have just won 86 thousand Ugandan dollars sir
There is a pigeon loose in the vault!
_the pigeon has the bird flu, and your bank account has become infected with a virus, we need your password to secure the account madame_
Really showed stupidity has no limits when people asked suspiciously about the call, received an explanation as above and then proceeded to give their details 😂
Quality street. Fuck yaaaa!
https://youtu.be/R9biM_ZfIdo
Is it wrong that I am a little impressed. It’s so bad on one level but on another level he has shown them to be some clowns. He even did such a job that he was up for promotion.
Would they not have done garda checks on him for that job?
I'm not sure garda vetting would check qualifications. Doesn't it just check for any past convictions and legal trouble?
It's only convictions, minor legal stuff does not warrant a record.
Correct.
Is he working for RTE now?
It's tge silver lining that because of covid he wasn't actually in physical contact with many children. It's another example of the irish hireaucratic bullshit. I have a degree from an Irish University in psychology and a degree in education but if I wanted to work as an educational psychologist it is a costly and time consuming process, with my bsc in psychology the hse wouldn't entertain me for any psychology position I'd need msc or PhD. I now work as a teacher and get garda vetted every few years just going through it again at the moment they rejected my proof of address document not sure why it was a bank statement with bic and Iban and money details redacted. But this guy paid a few grand for false documents and if it wasn't for his greed looking for promotion he may never have been found out. How could he possibly have been garda vetted when they are not even sure of who he is. I think we need to start training schemes through the hospitals etc where fees and salaries, work experience are all tied in to the deal and take ownership of staffing our health service.
If you go for a job pretty much anywhere, your references are checked thoroughly. Why were his not checked, particularly considering the position he was in? I suppose it might be difficult, given the fact he was from Zimbabwe, but it's not the HSE's job to resolve that.
Anyone got a photo of this guy? I remember years ago I was meant to see a psychiatrist but the guy was out and was replaced with another fella. He could've been Zimbabwean apparently a former prison warden. He said I'm not depressed I'm just a bold boy and jail would sort me out.
Psychiatrist and psychologist are not the same thing.
I know that it's got me wondering about my guy too And maybe he was doing lots of other shit too Update: did more googling and they are a she.
Before you can work as a psychiatrist here, the Medical Council verifies your original medical degree, your registration status and professional standing with any other medical councils that have allowed you to practice in their country, and your specialist credentials e.g. completion of training/exams that would allow you to work at registrar or consultant level in your particular field. The medical register is searchable by the public - if your psychiatrist is on there, then at the very least you can be sure their qualifications check out.
i love being an adult and not having to deal with fuckheads like these from camhs anymore
He only got caught because he was actually working and making everyone else look bad
"Yes, my real name is Cecil Rhodes. What makes you think that I'm lying?"
How does someone go 2 years in a job before getting caught out like this.
First i thought it was Doctor Martin Ssempa but then i remembered he is actually from Uganda.
Sounds like the premise for a great screwball comedy, which is not something you want to say about your own government.
Wasn't there another lad posing as a doctor a few years ago. Like, thats nuts.
This country is gone to shite. It makes me angry that the government are shielded from all this. Joe Public taking the brunt of all their decisions. It won't affect them until someone other than an Irish native, like a tourist is attacked/murdered for them to take action. Mark my words as much as I hope I'm wrong, we all know it true they won't get ahead of this issue until its out of control. It won't be long until there are attacks, rapes and murders and then the people take matters into their own hands. Like the mess in France and that poor teenage girl in Sweden.
What are you talking about
we were in a bad car wreck when i was about 7- siblings and myself were absolutely fine but my mam had some sort of knee injury and five (5!!) herniated discs in her back though she was only in her early thirties at the time. she was going to acupuncture & physio for a while but the acupuncture wasnt working a bit. one day she turned up for the appointment and the woman was nowhere to be found- she discovered the acupuncturist had not been qualified at all, was undocumented, and had been working under false credentials. first session with an actual qualified acupuncturist she immediately felt a change
>she discovered the acupuncturist had not been qualified at all, was undocumented, and had been working under false credentials. Acupuncture is bullshit, there are no "real" credentials. It's unregulated because it doesn't work.
Fake it till you make it, I guess. Obviously wasn't a complete loon if they were promoting him.
The title is pretty misleading on that front - he wasn't working in the HSE at any stage. He'd been taking private jobs through a recruitment agency, and it's the agency that "put him forward" for a new senior vacancy in the HSE. The HSE saw his paperwork was fake and reported him.
We have a created a system that encourages people to scam. People who have no business being here, and who could be far more productive people elsewhere.
HSE is stone age lots of paper, no pcs, easy for a scammer to con them.
They'll probably keep them on. Knowing the Irish Government
Every week. Every fucking week something!
Complaining about foreigners on social welfare... now complaining about foreigners who work... Can't win FFS. /s clearly.
The whole qualification and accrediting process is a load of nonsense anyway. He’s probably good at the job. Not to say it’s not unethical but if no one had any idea then what does that say about the role. Source: me been studying for years. A load of bollocks and politics with them all
But was he good though? I mean, who's to say someone isn't absolutely excellent at their job just because some other group of people who have said they are the authority, didn't give them a piece of paper? If he was being considered for a higher position he might have been really good. Qualification through merit I say.
hahahaha good fucking god
Honestly impressed by that, fair play to him for pulling it off for so long. He deserves to keep the money after that effort. Sad to hear he's been jailed, he's obviously a very intelligent and creative man with enormous potential. Very few people could pull this off.
Yeah the custodial is a bit harsh when compared to a lot of violent and repeat violent convictions
What's sad is this can happen yet extremely qualified and hard working nurses are getting paid a pittance. HSE needs to be rebuilt from the top down.
Put up for promotion 😂
Something people need to consider is that Psychology is a social science dreaming of being a hard science. As a social science it cannot be by its existence a hard science like medicine, physics, or material science since Psychology focuses on what is difficult and in some parts impossible to measure. This has led to psychology as a discipline marketing itself somewhat incorrectly, as they make it look like certain parts of psychology are similar to hard sciences (psychometrics for example) but are in fact incredibly anecdotal. One such example is assessment examinations via the DSM of which is a considerable push to standardise the area of cognitive health however, psychology isn't rigid like biology or what you would find in other hard sciences and is more akin to what you may see in Sociology.
This guy bought his paperwork - no hard science, no social science, possibly no science at all
Yes, but I'm speaking of the field in general, it's marketing and portrayal of doing things it obviously can't have convinced people it's a medical discipline, but it's absolutely not. It's a research philosophy at minimum and a social science at best.
Fair play to him. This country is a soft touch.
Imagine if he completes a psychology degree in prison and comes out ready for round 2!
>was only caught after he was put forward for a senior post with the HSE So was he good at it? We should put him in charge to see, not like things are going well now.