Dispute over dead woman’s medical chart at inquiry

A DISPUTE has arisen between two secretaries as to whether the medical chart of a deceased patient had lain in a consultant’s office tray for months or weeks.

Dr Etop Akpan, a consultant at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, has had 38 allegations of professional misconduct and/or poor professional performance brought against him by the Medical Council.

Sharon McEneaney from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, was aged 29 when she first attended the hospital in October 2007 complaining of severe abdominal pain. She waited nine months before a cancer diagnosis was made in July 2008 and died in April 2009. It was only after former TD Dr Rory O’Hanlon intervened at the request of her family that a biopsy was carried out.

Nora Landers, secretary to Ms McEneaney’s GP Dr Shane Corr, told a Medical Council fitness to practise inquiry that she called Dr Akpan’s secretary on a number of occasions between February and June 2008.

Ms Landers said she only stopped calling the hospital in June 2008 when Dr O’Hanlon intervened and put Ms McEneaney in touch with a patient liaison officer at the hospital.

Dr Akpan’s secretary, Karen Murray, said she only vaguely remembered Ms Landers telephoning her once and that following the call she placed a note in Ms McEneaney’s chart that was in a tray behind her desk.

Ms Landers said Ms Murray had written: “I do not know what to do about this girl” on the note when she telephoned her towards the end of June 2008. Ms Landers said Ms Murray also told her that Ms McEneaney’s chart had been sitting on Dr Akpan’s desk for at least three months.

“I remember it that ‘at least three months’ were the words used because I was horrified,” Ms Landers said, on the third day of the inquiry. Ms Landers said she called Ms Murray around four or five times following Ms McEneaney’s last out-patient appointment on February 13, 2008.

She said Ms McEneaney had been calling the GP practice in case her doctor had received a letter or other information about her care, because she had not received anything.

Ms Murray, who said she was secretary to Dr Akpan and another consultant, said the patient’s chart was not on Dr Akpan’s desk but on his office tray behind her desk and that the doctor usually checked it every two to three weeks.

Earlier, Dr John Hanson, a consultant radiologist at the hospital, said he was “flummoxed” that the care plan put in place for Ms McEneaney in December 2007 was not carried out.

The inquiry was adjourned until December 19.