The former president of the Medical Council, Dr John Hillery, has said the medical profession in Ireland is at risk of losing its leadership position in health service development because it is failing to put the public interest ahead of doctors' own interests.
Dr Hillery, president of the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities, said the perceived reaction of the medical profession to scandals had been one of denial.
Speaking at the annual congress of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland at the RDS in Dublin yesterday, Dr Hillery said that high-profile cases of bad practice had led to the greatest threat ever to the independence of the medical profession in Ireland as a force for change and a voice for the disadvantaged.
"It was not the actions themselves but the fact that no one said stop that has led the public to question doctors. It is not the ability or commitment of their individual doctors they question but the commitment of the profession as a body to put the public interest ahead of its own interest."
He said the new Medical Practitioners' Act providing for a Medical Council with a non-medical majority was "one manifestation of this".
"The end point may be an attempt by governments in Ireland and elsewhere to use bureaucracy to deliver control and the appearance of safe predictability in health service delivery," he said.
Dr Hillery said that the medical profession needed to reclaim the initiative in its own regulation and advocacy, define its role in the consumerist context of the 21st century and to tell the public what it is doing and wants to do in the public interest.
"The role of the medical profession is not to fussily demand that someone act. The role of the profession is to act," he said.
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