A DOCTOR’S career is in ruins and she is subject to a suspended prison sentence after she turned addict and stole drugs from York Hospital.

For four months, breast and plastic surgery specialist Samia Naz Siddiqui, 36, injected leftover clinical morphine to give herself a boost at the end of her shifts, York Crown Court heard.

On New Year’s Day, security staff found the doctor in an operating theatre where she shouldn’t have been, with used syringes in her handbag. A police search then found a suitcase full of more syringes and other injection-related equipment, including an anti-nausea drug cyclizine, said Paul Nicholson, prosecuting.

She had stolen it and taken it to counter the side effects of the morphine, the main chemical used to make heroin.

Her barrister Andrew Semple said she had used morphine as a crutch to cope with stress, caused by her claim for unfair dismissal against Scarborough Hospital on grounds of discrimination when pregnant, and other work problems.

“The effect was to give her a temporary filip at the end of the day,” he said.

Since her arrest, Siddiqui, pictured, had been sacked by York Hospital for gross misconduct and, though not struck off by the General Medical Council, she must submit to drug tests and other conditions to continue practising as a doctor, he added, She is highly unlikely to be employed by any NHS or public hospital again, said Mr Semple. “She presents as a woman shattered.”

Judge Neil Davey QC told Siddiqui: “What you did was despicable. It represents the greatest possible breach of trust in two quite separate directions.”

He said the public trusted doctors to put the interests of their patients first and hospitals trusted doctors to behave properly.

Siddiqui, of Crossways, off Hull Road, York, pleaded guilty to theft of drugs and needles, and was given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition she agrees to two years’ supervision.

The loss of her career and the shame she had brought upon herself and her family were extra punishments, he said.

Mr Nicholson said Siddiqui joined York Hospital in September 2014. On more than 200 occasions since, when a patient had been given part of an ampoule of morphine for pain relief, and the rest should have been disposed of, she had taken the remaining unneeded drug and used it on herself.

Mr Semple said no patient had been harmed by Siddiqui’s actions.

A spokesman for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “There is a strict regulatory code for the management of controlled drugs which all trusts have to follow. We have a robust system for all aspects of drugs administration and, since this incident, we have strengthened training around procedures.”

Mr Semple said that since her arrest, Dr Siddiqui had been diagnosed as suffering from work-related depression and was receiving medication. She had also started attending a self-help group for doctors and dentists with addiction problems and no longer took morphine.