The Medical Council will start investigating six further complaints against the former Drogheda obstetrician Dr Michael Neary this month.
The complaints, some of which relate to the alleged unnecessary removal of patients' wombs, will be heard on February 9th, The Irish Times has learned.
The complaints were among 37 made to the council about Dr Neary after it first emerged in 1998 that a number of patients suspected their wombs had been unnecessarily removed by the doctor. The council's Fitness to Practise Committee decided that 21 complaints warranted the holding of a sworn inquiry and an inquiry began into 15 of the complaints in 2000. It concluded last year and found Dr Neary, who practised at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital from 1974 to 1998, guilty of professional misconduct over the removal of the wombs of 10 patients. He was subsequently struck off the medical register.
However, six of the complaints, which the committee decided merited a sworn inquiry, were not fully-investigated. That investigation is now to begin and the six complainants have received letters inviting them to give evidence.
They have been informed that an independent expert will be present to hear their evidence but that Dr Neary does not plan to attend.
No explanation was given in the letters as to why it has taken until now to investigate their complaints. Nonetheless, the women are understood to welcome the opportunity to outline what allegedly happened to them. Meanwhile, the transcript of the council's inquiry into 15 complaints against Dr Neary, which runs to thousands of pages, is now available from the council on CD-ROM, priced €20.
The High Court directed that the transcript be made available. Council president Prof Gerard Bury said it had not put the transcript on the council's website because it was "extraordinarily sensitive material".
It has emerged that a recent inquiry by the Fitness to Practise Committee into a complaint made in 1999 against Dr Finian Lynch, another obstetrician at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, has found him not guilty of professional misconduct. The inquiry which cleared him took place last month.