Baker case raises very serious questions
It said it was satisfied that Dr Baker “has blatantly disregarded his obligations as a medical practitioner registered with the GMC”.
“He has repeatedly ignored requests to undergo assessment and has failed to attend all the GMC hearings,” the GMC’s Fitness To Practise (FTP) panel said.
“Such behaviour not only highlights a lack of insight into his professional responsibilities but undermines the trust and high standards of behaviour which the public rightly expect from members of the medical profession. His behaviour in refusing to co-operate with the GMC is totally unacceptable.”
The panel said it had a duty to protect the public, to maintain public confidence in the medical profession and to enforce proper standards of professional behaviour as set out in good medical practice.
“In view of this, the panel has determined that the only appropriate sanction to impose is that of erasure,” said the GMC.
All of this information, and more, is available to the general public on the GMC website. We are told the complaint which led to the GMC hearing was lodged by a medic who had concerns about Dr Baker’s management of acute and complex emergencies. We are told the GMC found “cogent and credible prima facie evidence” to uphold this complaint. Any patient in Britain who looks up Dr Baker’s name on the GMC website is left in no doubt as to why it took the decision to strike him off.
Contrast this with the information available on the website of the Irish Medical Council. Nowhere does it say that an FTP inquiry took place in Ireland on foot of a complaint about Dr Baker. Nowhere does it say the Medical Council found him guilty of professional misconduct on foot of the findings that inquiry. It says conditions have been attached to his name — and these are listed and classified as “health-related” — but anyone who wants to know more must write to the Medical Council.
You will know Dr Baker was found guilty of professional misconduct if you read the legal notices in the national newspapers on January 5 last. Again, you will not know why. You will not know if a complaint was made against him in this jurisdiction — and he worked here from 1991 to 2006 — because the Council does not give public details of complaints. Nor does it, unlike the GMC, make you privy to the details of the FTP inquiry that led to the conditions to his practise being attached. You are left to wonder if the Medical Council acted on foot of information it received from the British medical authorities or on foot of information relating to his practise in this jurisdiction.
There is an informal arrangement between the various medical regulatory authorities across Europe that where findings are made against a practitioner in one jurisdiction, and he or she subsequently seeks registration in another, then information should exchange hands.
This arrangement appears to have fallen down on a number of occasions. A recent case in point is that of Finnish pathologist Dr Antoine Geagea, who came to work in Ireland while on sick leave from his job in Finland. Prior to his arrival here, he had been twice reprimanded by the Finnish medical authorities following a cancer misdiagnosis and a delayed cancer diagnosis. His work in Ireland is now under scrutiny after concerns were raised here. The Medical Council has never confirmed whether they were made aware of Dr Geagea’s record before he came to Ireland.
It is also clear from the information contained in the GMC hearing into Dr Baker that the British medical authorities were not aware he was working in Ireland. Its FTP panel said there was “no evidence to suggest that Dr Baker has practised since 2003”.
“Accordingly his knowledge and skills may have diminished to such an extent as to impair his fitness to practise,” the FTP panel said.
All during this time, Dr Baker was working on and off as a locum in Irish hospitals and continued to do so without any restrictions until very recent times.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said no one raised concerns with them about Dr Baker’s work during his temporary placements here. This is reassuring. What is not reassuring is the lack of information publicly unavailable in relation to doctors found guilty of professional misconduct. Equally worrying is the breakdown in communication between the various medical regulatory authorities which we have witnessed take place.
Dr Ambrose McLoughlin, the pharmacy regulator, spoke in the European Parliament this month about the need for accountable and safe systems for the regulation of the various health professions. He said such a system should be “underpinned by a common approach to key fundamentals such as sharing information as to the current status of an applicant for registration in his member state, the details of the qualification and evidence that this practitioner is competent to practice the designated profession”.
At the moment, it seems this is not always the case.
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