The fitness to practise committee of the Medical Council had recommended sanctions be imposed on the three obstetricians who provided reports in 1998 exonerating the practice of Drogheda obstetrician Dr Michael Neary, it has emerged. Eithne Donnellan, Martin Walland Carl O'Brienreport.
However, when the full Medical Council met earlier this month it decided to impose no sanctions on the three, namely Prof Walter Prendiville, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin; Dr John Murphy, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street; and Dr Bernard Stuart of the Coombe Women's Hospital.
The fact that the fitness to practise committee had recommended sanctions, after finding the three guilty of professional misconduct, only came to light yesterday after the medical council published all reports relating to the fitness to practise committee inquiry into the three doctors.
It had recommended that Dr Murphy be admonished in relation to his professional conduct and that Dr Stuart and Prof Prendiville be advised that should they "have any reservations in any future report undertaken that these reservations should be included" in their reports.
Their reports, based on an interview with Dr Neary and a review of the case notes of nine patients whose wombs Dr Neary had removed, said he had no case to answer and that he should be allowed continue working at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda without any restrictions placed on his practice.
However the documents published yesterday reveal that they had got an undertaking from Dr Neary that he would not undertake any more Caesarean hysterectomies without getting a second opinion first. But this was not mentioned in the reports they prepared after reviewing his practice.
The transcripts of the inquiry indicate the three doctors were asked to prepare their reports at short notice by their union, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association. Dr Neary was a council member of the IHCA.
Their reviews were sent to the IHCA and forwarded to the North Eastern Health Board. Based on them Dr Neary, who had been put on leave, was allowed to briefly return to work, though the following month, based on a review by a UK expert he was suspended.
Council for Dr Murphy told the medical council that while his client had extracted an undertaking from Dr Neary not do do any more hysterectomies without a second opinion this could not be put in his report.
"Of course that could not be put in the report because if that was put into the report the ground would have been taken from underneath Finbarr Fitzpatrick and the IHCA, but that was the undertaking that was extracted from Dr Neary and Dr Neary to his credit honoured that undertaking. So I would ask you to bear that in mind," he said.
He added that the report was done in "sort of a good Samaritan context, a colleague was in distress".
Meanwhile the transcripts show that while Judge Maureen Harding Clark, in the Lourdes hospital Inquiry report, said the three obstetricians "have had serious regret for their part in producing these reports, which were motivated by compassion and collegiality", counsel for Prof Prendiville and Dr Stuart said they had never done so, and had not been given an opportunity to respond to her draft report as others had.
The transcripts show that the secretary general of the IHCA Finbarr Fitzpatrick told the inquiry he had "pressurised" two of the obstetricians into preparing reports on the practice of Dr Neary. He said he had told Dr Murphy that he was "in a corner, somebody had to do it and why couldn't it be him?". Mr Fitzpatrick also said he had known Prof Prendiville well. "Again I would have, you know, used the argument that somebody has to do it".