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.

Consultant paediatric surgeon Professor Martin Corbally and registrar Sri Paran had faced a series of allegations that their actions had fallen below the standards expected of medical professionals with their expertise and experience.

Dignity 4 Patients criticised the IMC’s handling of the case, saying crucial evidence from an expert witness on the dysfunctional, hierarchical structure and deferential behaviour towards senior doctors, which permeate the Irish health system, was not heard.

“This was a lost opportunity for the Irish Medical Council to name and address a core issue affecting patient safety,” said the group’s spokesperson Bernadette Sullivan.

She also criticised comments by the committee’s chairman, Dr John Monaghan, who ruled they were not satisfied that “a series of catastrophic errors” represented a malicious intention on the part of the two doctors. She pointed out that a charge of malicious intention is not contained in the relevant legislation.

The committee’s decision has also been strongly criticised by epidemiologist and health systems researcher at Dublin City University, Professor Anthony Staines.

“I am not for one minute suggesting that Prof Corbally is not a good surgeon, quite the opposite. However, this does not get away from the fact that what happened represented a serious medical and systems failure at Crumlin Hospital,” he told Irishhealth.com.