Medical accountability - Suspended doctors free to practise

BEFORE the Medical Council can notify either the Minister for Health or an employer that a doctor is under investigation or even suspended, a fitness to practise inquiry must have been held and its negative finding must have been upheld by the High Court.

This is in line with the concept of justice that presumes everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

But it makes absolutely no sense that a doctor who is under suspension, on the grounds of being a possible threat to the public, can go elsewhere and practise there, while the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 proscribes those who suspended the doctor from notifying the new employers of this suspension.