An inquiry into the fitness to practise of two doctors following the removal of a wrong kidney from a child at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, ended this evening with the medics being cleared of professional misconduct.
A fitness to practice committee of the medical council, which was hearing allegations of professional misconduct against Prof Martin Corbally and junior doctor Sri Paran, decided to invoke Section 67 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 under which undertakings could be given by the doctors not to repeat the conduct complained of and no finding of professional misconduct would be made against them.
Patrick Leonard, barrister for the medical council's chief executive officer, objected to this course of action, saying it would be "very unusual" to invoke Section 67 at such a late stage in a serious case which was "calling out for" the imposition of sanctions after four days of evidence had been heard.
The chairman of the fitness to practice committee, Dr John Monaghan, said the committee was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the conduct complained of amounted to professional misconduct.
There were "a series of catastrophic errors" in the case "but we were not satisfied these represented a malicious intention or that the category of professional misconduct was an appropriate way to deal with this tragic outcome," he said.
The case centred around the wrongful removal of a healthy kidney from a now 8-year-old boy in March 2008, leaving him with a right kidney with 9 per cent functionality. Evidence was given on the first day of the inquiry last May that the boys parents Jennifer Stewart and Oliver Conroy asked hospital staff on at least four occasions to double check which kidney was to be removed before he was brought to theatre.
Ms Stewart said she was under the impression her son was to have his right kidney removed since an outpatient appointment at the hospital on January 17th, 2008. However Prof Corbally took an erroneous note of that consultation, recording that the boy needed his left kidney removed. It set in train a series of events which culminated in the child having his healthy kidney removed.
The operation was carried out by Dr Paran, with Prof Corbally having delegated the surgery to him. Dr Paran had claimed he only had five minutes to prepare for the operation but Prof Corbally disputed this.
Prof Corbally and Dr Paran each gave three undertakings to the fitness to practise committee today before the case against them halted. These were not to undertake surgery again without reviewing x-rays, not to delegate work to other doctors without ensuring they were prepared and trained, and to prepare a joint written guide for the medical council within 12 months on the lessons learned from this case and how it could be prevented again.
As the case ended the boy's parents stressed lessons had to be learned.