Doctors will continue to have the potential to harm patients in the same way that the Drogheda obstetrician, Dr Michael Neary, did unless the Government immediately changes the law, the Medical Council said yesterday.
Calling for urgent changes to the Medical Practitioners Act to enable a system be put in place to measure the competence of doctors on an ongoing basis, the council's president, Prof Gerard Bury, said there was nothing to stop another Dr Neary case happening.
At the official publication in Dublin of the council's inquiry into Dr Neary, he said monitoring of doctors who operated independent practice was "totally and completely absent".
The council has found Dr Neary (61) guilty of professional misconduct after he unnecessarily removed the wombs of 10 women. It found Caesarian hysterectomies were carried out over 20 times as frequently in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, where Dr Neary worked, as they were at the Coombe Women's Hospital or in the National Maternity Hospital between 1993 and 1998.
The women whose wombs were removed now want a public inquiry into what occurred at the hospital. The Medical Council supports their call. The chair of its ethics committee, Senator Geraldine Feeney, said: "I am in favour of a new style of inquiry into the matter rather than a tribunal and if possible that it would run in tandem with any criminal investigation undertaken by the gardaí." She suggested an inquiry format similar to the Hutton inquiry in Britain.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, is expected to announce an inquiry after he meets Patient Focus, the group representing many of the women, later this month.
Yesterday Mr Martin met the chief executive officer and deputy chief executive officer of the North Eastern Health Board to discuss current practices at the Drogheda obstetrics unit. The health board, he was told, has asked a clinical risk- management team from the UK to review current practices.
Mr Martin said he was "shocked and appalled" at the findings of the Medical Council's investigation. The women had been "scarred, both physically and emotionally".
He said the draft Heads of Bill for a new Medical Practitioners Act are near completion. "It will provide for the establishment of a competence assurance scheme to promote the highest standards of medical practice into the future," he said.
Ms Sheila O'Connor, spokeswoman for Patient Focus, called for the appointment of a clinical ombudsman and a national patient complaints service. She said complaints were made to the hospital about Dr Neary as far back as 1990 but were not acted on.