Neary redress scheme deadline set for March

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney has set a deadline of St Patrick’s Day for the establishment of a redress scheme to compensate women damaged by disgraced obstetrician Dr Michael Neary.

The deadline was agreed last week following a meeting between the minister and Patient Focus, the group which lobbies on behalf of the women.

Sheila O’Connor, spokeswoman for Patient Focus, said she is hopeful that the deadline can be met.

“I cannot conceive of it being missed actually because I think it would cause incredible stress to the women,” she said yesterday, speaking on RTÉ radio.

Separately, Patient Focus has written to the Medical Council requesting that the transcripts of an investigation into three obstetricians who exonerated Neary be made public.

The Medical Council is due to decide tomorrow on the fate of the three, who its fitness-to-practice committee has already found guilty of professional misconduct. They are Prof Walter Prendiville, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Coombe Women’s Hospital; Dr John Murphy, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street; and Dr Bernard Stuart of the Coombe Women’s Hospital.

Patient Focus wants the findings of the council’s fitness to practice committee published.

“We believe for this whole saga to come to a proper conclusion it’s imperative that that happens,” Ms O’Connor said.

The report of the fitness to practice committee will be presented to a full meeting of the Medical Council tomorrow after which the council will decide what sanctions, if any, should be imposed.

Sanctions range from censure, admonishment or advice, to attaching conditions to the retention of a doctor’s name on the medical register, to suspension of the doctor’s name from the register for a certain period or striking the doctor’s name off the medical register.

Doctors have a right to appeal any decision to the High Court within 21 days of the date of the council’s decision.

The inquiry into the three doctors began on foot of a formal complaint to the Medical Council by Patient Focus last year following publication of the Lourdes Hospital Inquiry report. The Lourdes Inquiry was a statutory inquiry set up to investigate the high rate of caesarean sections at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

The report referred to the fact that the three were asked to conduct a review of the work of Dr Neary after concerns were initially raised about his high rate of hysterectomies at the Drogheda hospital. It later transpired many of these operations were unnecessary.

Their review found he could continue working. It took a second damning review by a British-based obstetrician to get Neary removed.