Several prominent campaigners for improved rights for overseas doctors working in the Irish health service have been elected to the Medical Council.
There were among four new doctors elected to the council on Tuesday following a vote by individual categories of registered doctors.
Dr Liqa Ur Rehman, a neonatal registrar at the Coombe hospital in Dublin, was elected by a vote of non-consultant hospital doctors, defeating five other candidates with a personal tally of 1,701 ballots.
Dr Ur Rehman, general secretary of the Association of Irish Pakistani Physicians and Surgeons and co-founder of “Train Us for Ireland”, played a central role in a successful campaign by non-EEA doctors for the removal of barriers to specialist training and career progression, including changes to work permit and visa schemes.
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Nauman Nabi, a urology consultant in University Hospital Limerick, was elected in the category of doctors “not falling within any of the other categories”. Mr Nabi, president of the Association of Irish Pakistani Physicians and Surgeons, obtained 1,751 votes and finished comfortably ahead of five other candidates.
In the specialist division for obstetrics and gynaecology, Prof Deirdre Murphy defeated her colleague at the Coombe Hospital, Dr Carmen Regan, by 1,819 votes to 1,683.
Both consultants featured in the 2021 controversy over family members of staff receiving Covid-19 vaccine before they were generally available to the public.
Prof Murphy, who is also the chair of obstetrics at Trinity College Dublin, called on the master of the hospital, Prof Michael O’Connell, to resign over the incident, while Dr Regan was one of those who took doses home to vaccinate family members.
The fourth position on the Medical Council, in the anaesthesia specialist division, was taken by its current president, Dr Suzanne Crowe. She was elected with 1,757 votes, ahead of three other candidates.
No candidates were deemed eligible for election in two election categories, pathology or radiology, and public health medicine. The council said these categories will be filled at a later date, by co-option.
The Medical Council is made up of 25 members, six of them elected, five appointed by the Minister for Health through the public appointments service, one nominated by the Minister for Higher Education, two nominated by the HSE, two by medical schools and nine by a variety of health organisations.
A total of 4,966 doctors voted in the election.
The newly elected members will begin their term in June.
