Consultants to oppose hearings in public
The draft Medical Practitioners Bill proposes hearings to investigate doctors accused of serious professional misconduct should be held in public, unless it was otherwise inappropriate.
The hearings-in-public proposal is among a number of measures to create a more accountable system for the regulation of the medical profession.
Giving its reaction to the heads of the bill yesterday, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said the proposals would give a Minister for Health “extraordinary powers” by making doctors answerable to the Government instead of patients.
IHCA vice president David O’Keeffe said: “If a fitness to practice hearing was held in public, there is the risk that the professional reputation of a doctor might be damaged by complaints not founded. There is the problem of people thinking there is no smoke without fire.”
The IHCA is also opposed to proposals which give a minister power to appoint all 25 members of the regulatory body — the Medical Council — in addition to powers to dismiss the council and to direct it to follow a particular policy.
Dr O’Keeffe said: “The minister, for the first time in this bill, assumes the power to himself or herself to appoint all 25 members of the council; to instruct the council as to the strategy they should adopt, which will accord with Government strategy. And if the council doesn’t follow the ministerial instruction, the minister has the power under the proposed terms of this bill, to dismiss any or all of the members of the medical council.”
He said: “The big problem that we see is that this can affect the doctor-patient relationship, because the minister can put a medical council in place which will be confined to government policy. If the government-of-the-day’s policy would be that a certain group of patients should have treatment withheld or a particular treatment withheld, the Medical Council would be in a position to enforce the doctor to affect the way he or she treats the patient.”
The consultants also expressed concern that the council might be made up of a lay persons’ majority, rather than a majority of health professionals.
“If it has a lay persons’ majority, we would be unique in Western Europe in having the only non self-regulating medical council. The World Health Organisation review in 2005 looked at this and found that overall there was no real problem with this, this was not a problem in search of a solution and that across Europe there was no problem with medical profession self-regulating. We believe it would be dangerous and lose the confidence of the public and the competence of the medical profession,” he said.
The IHCA said it would also welcome the “competence assurance” proposals.
