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.