Patients’ group concerned at halt to kidney inquiry

A PATIENTS’ rights group has said it is concerned over the timing and motivation of last week’s decision to halt proceedings of a medical inquiry into two surgeons responsible for the removal of a wrong kidney from a young boy.

Dignity 4 Patients claimed there was great public unease about the ruling by the Irish Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee to terminate proceedings without hearing all the evidence in the case.

The committee invoked a new piece of legislation which allowed it to stop the inquiry on the basis that the two doctors at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin gave a number of undertakings about their future conduct.