An investigation is being conducted into how a psychiatrist suspended in Britain was allowed to practise in Ireland, the Minister for Health and Children said yesterday.
Mr Martin said he was not satisfied with the way the matter was handled by the Medical Council, which knew that Dr John Harding-Price had been suspended in Britain when it cleared him to take up employment with the South Eastern Health Board.
Dr Harding-Price worked as a locum at two psychiatric hospitals, St Luke's in Clonmel and St Canice's in Kilkenny, while under investigation in Britain for serious professional misconduct. He was subsequently found guilty by the British General Medical Council following an inquiry into complaints by three female patients. His name was removed from the British register last December.
An appeal by the psychiatrist against that decision was rejected on Wednesday by the Privy Council in Britain, which said he had shown "an approach to practice and an attitude to patients which have no place in medicine".
Suspension of the doctor would give the public insufficient protection, the three-member council concluded. "The direction that his name be erased from the register was necessary and is not amenable to challenge," it said.
Dr Harding-Price was initially suspended in March 2000. A spokeswoman for the GMC told The Irish Times the Medical Council in Ireland was informed of this on March 29th.
The following month, he was hired by the South Eastern Health Board.
A spokeswoman for the board said it received a certificate from the Medical Council on April 13th, confirming that Dr Harding-Price was registered to practise in Ireland. The board was not told, she said, that he was under suspension in Britain.
He worked at St Luke's Hospital from April 17th until July 31st, 2000 and at St Canice's from July 31st until November 5th.
Mr Martin said all of the circumstances of the case were being investigated. He was surprised someone suspended in Britain would not have been suspended in Ireland also. The Medical Council was an independent body but there were "certain questions to be answered", he told Radio Kilkenny.
He was satisfied that actions were available to the Medical Council in this instance. The council had the authority to apply to the courts for a suspension of the doctor's name from the register and that did not happen.
"My understanding is that the president of the Medical Council Prof Gerard Bury has been on public radio and . . . put forward the view that a person is innocent until proven guilty and that's the basis upon which they decided not to suspend the person from the register.
"I would have had a different perspective on it, I must say, from my own layman's view of it."
The Fine Gael health spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, called on Mr Martin to say what steps he had taken to require the Medical Council to act with concern for the public good when it had knowledge of a medical practitioner who could be a danger to the public. The council's stance could not be "allowed to go unchallenged".
Mr Brian Lea, registrar of the Medical Council, said the matter would be discussed at the council's monthly meeting on Tuesday and he could make no comment until then.
