Colleagues remember a ‘conscientious’ senior doctor

FOR the Dr Michael Shine most people in Drogheda knew, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital wasn’t just his workplace — it was his life.

He qualified at a time when a general surgeon was held in the same esteem as the rare specialists, respected for their breadth of knowledge and versatility in the both the consulting room and operating theatre.

“He was very conscientious,” says a former colleague. “There was one thing about him — as junior doctors we used to be ringing the senior guys at night if we had an emergency and sometimes these guys were not too happy to hear from you, but I never saw him get cross with anyone.

“In fact, if you called him just to sound him out about something, he would insist on coming in. He was a bachelor living on his own and the hospital was his life.”

He was as convivial as he was conscientious, with a bedside manner that many admired. “Patients liked him and he always made time to talk to relatives which wasn’t always done in those days. He didn’t have family of his own so he never used to be rushing off. We were as shocked as anybody about this.”

Michael Shine, now 77, is from Tipperary originally but spent practically all his professional career in Drogheda where he was worked at Our Lady of Lourdes and also had consulting rooms at Fair Street in the town.

It would later be alleged that at those locations he carried out inappropriate examinations on 29 boys and young men which amounted to indecent or sexual assault. Those allegations began to emerge in 1994 when two former patients made complaints in the space of a few months and the gardaí came calling.

At the time, he was a recent past member of Comhairle na nOspideal, the body which regulates the appointments of hospital staff, and he was a sitting member of the North Eastern Health Board, a position he retained until his retirement, on a full pension, at the end of 1995.

Consultants stereotypically spent their retirements on the golf course but Michael Shine became almost a full-time defendant. As the criminal investigation gained pace, eventually resulting in 10 charges relating to five men, he tried to block it on the grounds that the complaints were about events alleged to have happened too long ago for proper defence or prosecution evidence to be available.

Eventually that proved unsuccessful and he faced a four-week jury trial in the circuit criminal court in Dundalk in October 2003. Somewhat unusually for a defendant in a sex offences case, he willingly gave evidence, taking the stand to give a staunch defence of his behaviour and character.

His method of examination was a hallmark of his thoroughness and he was deeply offended that any patient could have thought otherwise. The jury deliberated overnight before returning with a full acquittal, much to the distress of some of those had made complaints and had been forced to give intimate detail when giving evidence against him.

But his battle wasn’t over as the medical council had launched a fitness to practice inquiry. He challenged that too, initially winning a High Court action preventing the council from probing matters already disposed of in the Circuit Criminal Court.

He also argued at the time that he was retired and had no intention of returning to practice but the council on principle appealed to the supreme court which during the summer this year cleared the way for a full probe.

The inquiry took only a few months and the verdict was quite different from that of the criminal court. A few weeks ago, Shine was informed that he had been found guilty of professional misconduct and would be struck off the register of medical practitioners.

He had 21 days to appeal but did not take up the option so when the council asked the High Court yesterday to affirm the strike off order, it was all merely a formality. There are a number of criminal files still with the Director of Public Prosecutions as well as rumblings about civil actions.

He did not make himself available to comment yesterday.