The newly-elected president of the Medical Council, Dr John Hillery, said yesterday he was very distressed to hear what patients who attended Dr Paschal Carmody, the Clare GP recently struck off the medical register, had been through.
Dr Carmody, who practised at the East Clinic in Killaloe, was providing photodynamic therapy (PDT) for patients with deep-seated cancers which is only meant to be used for the treatment of some superficial cancers.
The first complaints to the Medical Council about Dr Carmody's provision of PDT were made in December 2002, Dr Hillery said. "The PDT distressed us so much that we immediately went to the High Court asking that he be removed from the register." He added that PDT was an experimental treatment being used in top centres in the US for certain cancers. "But it was being offered here for everything, I think."
Dr Hillery was speaking on RTÉ's Liveline programme after several callers complained about the treatment they or relatives were offered or provided by Dr Carmody.
Dr Carmody was found guilty of professional misconduct by the council last month after its Fitness to Practise Committee conducted three inquiries into complaints against him. These related to the provision of PDT, the inappropriate treatment of a patient with ME, and his conviction in the District Court for manufacturing and supplying unauthorised medicines.