A psychiatrist who was struck off the register in Britain last year for serious professional misconduct claims he has been cleared to resume working in Ireland.
The Medical Council said yesterday, however, that Dr John Harding-Price remained suspended in the Republic. A High Court order imposing the suspension last November had not been lifted, a spokesman said.
Dr Harding-Price, who worked at two hospitals in the south-east in 2000 while suspended in Britain, was struck off the British register last year following complaints by three female patients. The Privy Council said last November he had shown "an approach to practice and an attitude to patients which have no place in medicine". One of the patients claimed he had kept her undressed unnecessarily during a consultation, while another said he had pursued detailed and intimate questions about her sex life.
He was suspended in Ireland, pending an investigation by the Medical Council's fitness to practise committee, following the Privy Council decision. Dr Harding-Price claimed he had appeared before the committee in Dublin earlier this month and "been cleared of any misconduct".
"People keep ringing me and saying when am I coming back to start. I'm just clearing it with the Medical Council. The solicitors are clearing it at the moment. I've had a complete, full clearance of any professional misconduct," he told Radio Kilkenny.
The accusations against him in Britain were "wicked" and totally unfounded, he said. "It was just unbelievable rubbish. It was completely wicked . . . these charges were absolutely scandalous and unfounded. The most appalling rubbish."
He had stopped practising in Ireland at the end of 2000 to return to Britain to fight to clear his name. "I had no choice. It was a slur on my name, a terrible slur on my name and on my family. It upset my patients terribly." Some of his Irish patients, he said, had written letters of support.
The Medical Council had had no alternative but to look into the charges and had done so "incredibly thoroughly" by holding a four-day hearing, he said.
A spokesman for the council told The Irish Times it was precluded by law from discussing cases until they had reached finality with a decision by the High Court. Speaking generally, he said the procedure was: the fitness to practise committee delivers its findings to the council, which then decides what sanction, if any, should be applied. This in turn requires the council to go to the High Court to seek the appropriate order. All he could say about Dr Harding-Price was his suspension stood.
The psychiatrist was the subject of a row last year between the council and the South Eastern Health Board, which said it should have been told he was "under a cloud" in Britain when it employed him at St Luke's Hospital in Clonmel and St Canice's Hospital in Kilkenny. The council said it was refused permission by the High Court to pass on this information when it acted to have the doctor removed from the register.
