Doctor ‘was unable to practise safely in English’, council hears

A locum senior house officer at St Columcille's Hospital in south Dublin was "unable to practise medicine safely through the medium of the English language in 2013", a Medical Council fitness-to-practise committee has been told.

Dr Mohamed Elhassan is accused of professional misconduct and poor professional performance arising out of his work as a locum at the hospital in Loughlinstown over a single weekend, from July 6th, 2013, to July 8th, 2013.

Complaints about Dr Elhassan's performance were made to the Medical Council by consultant physician in geriatric medicine at the hospital, Dr Rachael Doyle, and by the then acting director of the National Poisons Centre at Beaumont Hospital, Dr Anton Leonard.

Speaking to the hearing via telephone, Dr Leonard said Dr Elhassan’s “speech was incoherent. It was slurred, thereby preventing him from communicating clearly”.

He said he had been asked by a UK poisons centre which handled out-of-hours calls for Irish hospitals to review a number of recordings of calls by Dr Elhassan, made while the doctor was at St Columcille’s.

The recordings showed Dr Elhassan had difficulties with a patient’s name, sex and weight, and with interacting with his medical colleagues both in the hospital and at the UK poisons centre, Dr Leonard said.

Dr Leonard said the calls also showed a lack of “basic knowledge” of what Dr Elhassan was being told by staff at the poisons centre.

“I was very surprised by his apparent lack of knowledge of a paracetamol overdose,” said Dr Leonard.

Dr Leonard told the inquiry that a paracetamol overdose was a very common issue at emergency departments “all over the world” and Dr Elhassan should have been “comfortable” in dealing with it.

However, he said Dr Elhassan’s “knowledge was absent”.

“His ability to prescribe was brought into question. Staff in the UK had to bring him through each step,” Dr Leonard said.

Dr Leonard said that Dr Elhassan was “unable to practise medicine safely through the medium of the English language in 2013”.

Doctor’s response

Responding to the allegations via telephone from Saudi Arabia, where he is now based, Dr Elhassan said that at the time of the allegations he had been "very new to Ireland, so the language was very new to me".

He said there had been a lot of background noise when he had contacted the poisons centre by phone.

Dr Leonard said he and Dr Elhassan had actually never spoken or met in person.

However, he told Dr Elhassan that “any medical professional who had the opportunity to listen to the tapes” would recognise the “inability to prescribe and lack of knowledge. That would be very apparent”.

Dr Elhassan is facing 10 allegations arising from his weekend at St Columcille’s, including that he failed to display an ability to perform medical procedures, prescribe appropriate dosages of medicines, adequately examine patients, keep adequate notes, respond to patients’ symptoms and identify and respond to a medical emergency.

He is also accused of dropping a placement at Cavan-Monaghan Mental Health Service from his CV when he knew, or ought to have known, that it had concerns about his practice.

Dr Elhassan, who is originally from Sudan, qualified in Romania before coming to Ireland in 2013. He left Ireland in 2014.

He has previously told the inquiry that he had been suffering from anxiety during his time in Ireland.

He said when he arrived in Ireland he had anxiety and depression and “there was no one there to support me mentally or spiritually”.

“You have not a full idea of my situation,” he said.