The locum consultant pathologist whose work at hospitals in Galway and Cork has come under scrutiny after a number of breast cancer patients were misdiagnosed received a glowing reference when he left University College Hospital Galway for Cork University Hospital, it emerged yesterday.
Dr Antoine Geagea worked in the laboratory at UCHG from September 2006 until March 2007 and on leaving got a reference saying he was extremely conscientious and hard-working. The reference, written by Dr John Callaghan, a consultant histopathologist at UCHG, also said: "I have no reason to doubt his ability in any future post he may find himself."
A few months later it emerged Dr Geagea may have been responsible for the misdiagnosis of a woman with breast cancer whose biopsy was analysed at UCHG in early 2007. The Health Information and Quality Authority is investigating this.
Dr Geagea worked in the laboratory at CUH for seven weeks in July and August 2007 before he was dismissed after it emerged there were question marks over his work in Galway. A review of 166 samples of his work at CUH carried out by a UK laboratory on behalf of the Health Service Executive found 15 patients may have been misdiagnosed. The HSE has never published this review. It claims it hasn't been finalised.
However, questions are being asked about how Dr Geagea came to be employed by the HSE as he had been investigated by the equivalent of the Irish Medical Council in Finland, where he now lives, and he was sanctioned but not struck off by it in 2004 and 2006 over the misdiagnosis of two breast cancer patients there.
He registered with the Irish Medical Council in September 2006, and while it is not clear what checks it made on him before his registration, it is understood that under EU legislation the council must register any doctor who is already registered in another EU country.
Speaking to Newstalk yesterday, Dr Geagea denied he had been reprimanded by the equivalent of the medical council in Finland. Last night he told The Irish Times he had never been confronted about misdiagnosing breast cancer patients in the Republic. "It's all nonsense and lies," he said. He said he was concerned about the quality of the CUH laboratory. He claimed he resigned over the system in place there and wasn't dismissed.
There were calls yesterday for an independent inquiry into how he came to be employed here.