Medical Council becomes lay majority to increase transparency

THE country’s regulatory body for doctors has a lay majority for the first time — 13 lay members and 12 medical practitioners.

The appointments to the Medical Council were announced yesterday by the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, and will be effective from the council’s first meeting on Saturday, May 31, next.

Ms Harney said it was important for public confidence that members of a professions themselves do not have majority control in the governance of their regulatory body.

The council was established under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 that also provides for fitness to practice hearings will be held in public.

“I firmly believe that the regulation of a profession will be enhanced by opening up the system to new ideas brought in by those who are not members of the profession itself,” said Ms Harney.

One of the newly elected council members is Margaret Murphy, whose 21-year-old son, Kevin Murphy, died in 1999.

He was suffering from hypercalcemia, a treatable condition in the early stages, with a 96% success rate. Kevin died, however, as a result of a series of misdiagnosis, lost opportunities and inappropriate care.

Ms Murphy, who was appointed to the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality last year, believes that patient advocates and representatives should be involved in healthcare.

“If we are not at the table, we cannot influence decisions,” she said.

“What I learned from my own experience is that we need a non-adversarial system where the focus is on arriving at the truth of what happened and identifying ways of preventing a recurrence,” she said.

“Immediately after an adversarial event there is a window of opportunity... and sometimes that is lost because of inappropriate responses and people end up going down the litigation route.”

There was a better way, she insisted. At the very least, the family should be told as soon as possible that something has gone wrong.

She is confident that the new make-up of the council will make it more transparent and lift public confidence.

It is expected that the final member of the council, to be nominated by the Royal Irish Academy, will be announced early next week.