A consultant who was appointed to a Health Service Executive (HSE) review of orthodontic services has dissociated himself from the review's findings and is to issue a minority report outlining his concerns, writes Theresa Judge
Dr Ian O'Dowling said he could not endorse the report which is due to be published within the coming weeks.
The review was set up in April by HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm, who accepted that children were facing unacceptably long delays in getting orthodontic treatment on their teeth.
A report by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children last year was also very critical of the service.
The review group was due to conclude its work in June but its final meeting took place only last Friday.
Dr O'Dowling said he had stayed with the review to the end.
Dr O'Dowling said his difficulty with the review was that it had failed to examine an allegation made by an orthodontist that some of her patients were damaged because they were not given treatment during a period when she was suspended from her job by the then southwestern area health board in Dublin.
"This allegation that children were damaged has been out there for a number of years now and I believe it should have been investigated, but it will not be examined in the report," Dr O'Dowling, a consultant orthodontist based in Cork, said yesterday.
The allegation should have been investigated, a report produced on it and actions taken based on the findings of the report," Dr O'Dowling added.
The consultant orthodontist who was suspended, Dr Triona McNamara, subsequently took a judicial review challenging her suspension and she was reinstated.
She says she was out of her job for a total period of some five months.
She was suspended initially in 1999 at a time when a new system of training for orthodontists was being introduced in to Ireland.
She and a number of her colleagues around the State were supervising trainee orthodontists in programmes accredited by the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
Under the new regulations, these programmes were forced to close and orthodontic training was to be conducted by the Irish dental schools.
Dr McNamara, who continues to work in private practice having taken leave of absence from her health board position, said yesterday she was "trying to protect children from a monopoly".
A shortage of trained orthodontists has been one of the major problems facing the service over recent years.
The HSE is currently paying for a number of orthodontists to be trained in England.
Dr O'Dowling said he believed the allegation that children had been damaged was "a very significant issue" and one of the main reasons he had decided to take a position on the review group.
The allegation "needed to be examined and put to bed", he said.
In April, the HSE said the review group, which is chaired by Hugh Kane, would "examine all areas of orthodontics including training for orthodontists and eligibility guidelines," and would assess recommendations made by the Joint Oireachtas Committee.
A HSE spokeswoman said yesterday that the review was "not yet complete" and could, therefore, not make any further comment.
She said the HSE was "astonished" that Dr O'Dowling "is able to complete a minority report on a review that is not yet complete".
Dr O'Dowling said he was in the process of writing his report. The review group, he said, had met six times in total.
It is believed that over recent weeks the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children inquired as to why the review group had not yet completed its work and was told that the report would be produced in two weeks' time.
In its report in 2005, the Oireachtas Committee questioned why children whose condition was classified as category C, which can be quite disfiguring, were being told they were not eligible for treatment.
It recommended that these children be put back on waiting lists and treated.
Over recent years many parents have had to pay thousands of euros for private treatment because waiting times in the public system can be up to four years.