Minister dragging her feet on protection

Evelyn Ring

While Ms Harney is waiting for other issues in the health service to be resolved, long-awaited changes to the Medical Practitioners Act should be made now, according to Patient Focus.

Members of the patients’ campaign group will meet Ms Harney later today to discuss Dr Paschal Carmody, who was struck off the medical register for professional misconduct last year.

Two of the cases on which the Clare-based doctor was judged centred on the standard of care and unrealistic promises of a cure he allegedly gave to two patients, both of whom have since died.

Last month, Dr Carmody said he was no longer practising alternative or complementary medicine in Co Clare. He said he spends a lot of time abroad giving seminars and is researching patient attitudes to natural medicine.

Dr Carmody and Dr William Porter, an American eye surgeon, who was struck off the medical register for gross negligence in California before he moved to Ireland, treated cancer patients with a controversial therapy. Dr Carmody said he believes Dr Porter is in China. Both doctors may face criminal charges.

Patient Focus has been contacted by several of Dr Carmody’s former patients and their relatives.

Dublin GP and Patient Focus member Dr Tony O’Sullivan said much-needed changes to the Medical Practitioners Act could have been made long before now. “Both Ms Harney and her predecessor Micheál Martin have dragged their feet on it even though everyone, doctors and patients alike, want to see the new legislation introduced,” he said.

It was clear alternative medicine needed to be regulated, particularly after it was disclosed that an alternative health therapist is still practising after being sharply criticised over the death of a former patient.

An inquest last month into the death of Mayo man Paul Howie, aged 49, heard he died after being suffocated by a cancerous tumour in his throat.

He had been treated by therapist, Mineke Kamper, based in Mulranny, Co Mayo.

The dead man’s wife, Michelle Howie, claimed Ms Kamper had discouraged her husband from seeking medical help.

Patient Focus wants fitness to practice hearings to be held in public and patients to be given the right to know the outcome of their complaint.

They say the current system is absurd and unjust.

They also say there should be a mechanism to review doctors found guilty of professional misconduct to establish if other patients have been affected.

“There is no need for Minister Harney to wait for any more reports. She should get on with it and make the changes that people are crying out for,” Dr O’Sullivan said.