Medical driver guidelines published

The medical profession says new guidelines on medical fitness to drive will help clarify issues for doctors.

The 73-page report entitled Sláinte agus Tiomáint - Medical Fitness to Drive Guidelines aims to give clear guidance to medical professionals in implementing medical fitness to drive policies in Ireland.

It addresses such conditions as eye disease, epilepsy, cancer, strokes, amnesia, depression, pregnancy and deep vein thrombosis.

It also gives advice on how to handle the situation if drivers react badly to being told that they can no longer drive up to and including violence.

Road Safety Authority chief executive Noel Brett said drivers had “nothing to fear” from the new guidelines. He maintained their purpose was not to stop driver mobility but to facilitate drivers to the greatest degree to ensure they can stay on the road. He said that medical doctors had little structured advice before now in relation to driver fitness and this would make a welcome change.

“The guidelines will enable medical professionals to give advice and support to drivers who may have concerns about any condition or disease. Indeed the whole ethos of the work in putting together the medical guidelines is to enable driver mobility to the greatest possible degree consistent with safety on our roads,” he said.

Gerontologist Professor Desmond O’Neill said previous guidelines were about those who shouldn’t drive, but the new ones were an “enabling supportive philosophy” for both doctors and patients. He instanced sleep apnoea, where drivers have twice the risk of a crash, but that risk disappears if the condition is treated.

He said he would envisage no change to the number of drivers prevented from driving by their medical condition. “My gut instinct is no significant change. Now there is educational material for the doctors and there is educational material inbuilt in the guidelines. I don’t see more people being put off the roads.”

Patricia Logan, the President of the Irish College of Ophthalmologists, said it will make it easier for eye doctors in general to make decisions and discuss issues with patients. “It has not been clear as to who they should be advising and what they should be advising,” she said.

She acknowledged that telling patients that they were no longer fit to drive was a “huge call” to have to make, especially for those living in rural Ireland. “To say to them you are off the road is a very difficult thing,” she said, “what we are hoping is that we enable patients to  get new treatments and modifications rather than taking them off the road.”