A doctor who is being sued for alleged failure to attend to a Dublin man who died later the same day has told the High Court he had given specific instructions that he was not to be disturbed while attending to patients in his surgery.
Dr Andrew Jordan, of Heatherview Avenue, Aylesbury, Tallaght, Co Dublin, said he never answered his telephone while in surgery and certainly did not encourage his receptionists to contact him while he was attending patients.
There was a time when he took such calls. But he found he could not work with a patient on a one-to-one basis while being interrupted by phone calls.
He was giving evidence on the fifth day of an action in which Mrs Margaret Eite, of Bolbrook Villas, Tallaght, Co Dublin, has alleged Dr Jordan negligently and in breach of contract failed to respond to a series of telephone calls made on behalf of her late husband, Mr Noel Eite, to the doctor's surgery during lunchtime on November 7th, 1988.
Dr Jordan, who denies the claim, told his counsel, Mr John Fitzgerald SC, yesterday that he and another doctor with whom he was in practice treated 3,000 GMS patients and about 4,000 private patients in 1988.
The contract to treat General Medical Service patients was on the basis of a 24-hour day, seven days a week.
As a GP, he provided a primary medical care service, Dr Jordan said. He did not pretend to provide an emergency service. There was only one such service - the type obtained by a 999 call.
On the day Mr Eite died, Dr Jordan said, he had been working in his surgery in Tallaght from 7.30 or 7.45 a.m. straight through to about 6 p.m., when he left to attend his second surgery at Greenlea Road, Terenure. He returned home at about 11 p.m.
Although his mother was ill at the time, he called his wife to say he could not see her that lunch hour because of his heavy workload.
House calls to patients were generally undertaken late in the evening by either himself, his partner, or a locum from a medical bureau which the practice engaged.
There were clear surgery rules about callers describing chest and left arm pains in a person requiring attention, Dr Jordan said. The surgery summoned a cardiac ambulance or ensured that the family called one, because this was considered an emergency that needed to be dealt with immediately.
A GP would not necessarily call on such a patient. It was wasted time because at the end of the day the patient needed to be in hospital.
Dr Jordan said he had no rule for dealing with situations where a person placing a house call might be reluctant to avail of the services of an ambulance or send for one themselves.
But the receptionists would try and get the caller to accept their advice on this.
Dr Jordan said that in 1988 he did not have a pager, although he did have one in the years between 1978 and 1983 when he worked for the Medical Bureau.
His records showed that on the day of Mr Eite's death he treated 46 families in his Aylesbury surgery.
When he left his Aylesbury surgery at about 6 p.m. to go to his Greenlea surgery, he may have received a note from his receptionist informing him of the Eite house-call request. This was a note saying Mr Eite had been transferred to hospital.
Dr Jordan said that when he returned home that night, his wife told him she had phoned for an ambulance for Mr Eite. It was only when his wife phoned the Eite home late that night that he discovered Mr Eite was dead.
It was not his practice to go to funerals of patients, nor did he attend houses where bereavements had occurred.
The hearing continues today.