Banned British doctor guilty of misconduct

A PSYCHIATRIST who got work in hospitals in Tipperary and Kilkenny while suspended in Britain has been found guilty of professional misconduct here.

Dr John Harding Price will learn next week what sanction, if any, the Irish Medical Council will take following a complaint by a family in the South-East and a day-long fitness to practice inquiry in April.

The 73-year-old worked for several months at St Luke's Psychiatric Hospital in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, having arrived there in April 2000.

He went on to St Canice's Psychiatric Hospital in Kilkenny, where he worked until November 5, 2000.

It wasn't until the British Medical Council issued its findings of a fitness to practice inquiry in December of 2000 a month after he left Kilkenny that the South Eastern Health Board (SEHB) learned he had been suspended in Britain, pending an inquiry.

Senior staff at the health board read of the case in a British tabloid newspaper.

One woman in Britain complained he kept her unnecessarily undressed during a consultation.

Two others, also in Britain, said he asked them about their sex life when they attended his surgery complaining of headaches.

An immediate probe was launched and the then SEHB, now the Health Services Executive South Eastern Region, revised its recruitment practices to prevent the same thing happening again.

Yesterday, the mother of a patient who complained about Dr John Harding Price's treatment while in the South-East said they will never get over what happened.

She and her husband attended the Irish Medical Council inquiry in April but did not give evidence to the hearing.

"We made our complaint in July 2000, ever before we knew anything about his troubles in Britain. It broke in the media about him and we then contacted the health board and asked them questions about the whole thing. We had already lodged a complaint and then lodged a second one," she said.

The distraught mother, who asked not to be identified, said one of their complaints were along the same lines as the complaints made against Dr Harding Price in Britain. The second concerned his attitude to her treatment.

"As an ordinary member of the public, I would be horrified to think what was facing me if I were going into hospital to have psychiatric care. We wrote to the health board asking them how he could get work here while first under suspicion and later struck off in the UK."

The Irish Medical Council would only say that a notice will be published over the next week in medical journals regarding Dr Harding Price.

Under the IMC's rules, Dr Harding-Price could face being struck off or suspended from the register. Alternatively he could have conditions attached to his retention on the register.