MORE THOROUGH checks must be carried out on doctors before they are accepted onto the Irish register of medical practitioners, Fine Gael said last night.
The party’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly said yesterdays High Court case demonstrates the “frailty” of our present system in catching people who are economical with the truth when filling out forms to register here.
His comments came after the High Court heard Dr Rory Doyle who qualified here before going to work in the US for a number of years said he knew of no reason why he shouldn’t be fully re-registered here in 2001 even though he had fled the US to avoid a trial for alleged child sex assault offences.
The court also heard the doctor changed his name by deed poll to Dr David West in 2004.
Dr Reilly said more rigorous controls must be in place to protect Irish patients.
He said doctors should have to have insurance before registering here which they do not need at present and more comprehensive background checks must be carried out on doctors who have worked abroad and then want to register to work here as well as on doctors who were previously registered here and want to re-register.
Yesterday’s case, he said, demonstrated that the current system is over-reliant on the honesty of individual doctors filling out forms and that the system was “as leaky as a sinking ship”.
He added: “It shows how vulnerable we are and how frail the system is.”
Sheila O’Connor of Patient Focus said she totally agreed with Mr Justice Peter Kelly that the general public needed to be put on notice of the activities of this man.
“It’s essential for public protection which is one of the primary functions of the Medical Council,” she said. She added that it happened in the past that doctors were registered here despite being struck off abroad or having serious allegations against them abroad.
But she hoped medical councils would check with each other around the world on the record of doctors before agreeing to register them. It would have been easy to check this man’s record in Florida, she contended.