Madam, - We the undersigned, all members of the Medical Council, are writing in a personal capacity in regard to the Medical Practitioners Bill 2007. The Bill, if enacted, will establish a medical council of 25 members, all appointed by the Minister for Health. Previous medical councils, based on the Medical Practitioners Act 1978, also had 25 members, but only six were appointed by the Minister.
The new Bill is likely also to prescribe a majority of non-medical members on the council. In addition, it specifically allows for a non-medical majority in the fitness to practice committee, which will inquire into a doctor about whom a complaint has been made. Such an inquiry may result in a penalty being imposed on a doctor, such as his or her name being erased from the register with the resultant loss of livelihood.
In addition to the above, the part of the Bill that deals with the election of six medical members to the council restricts the freedom of a majority of doctors in Ireland to be nominated for this election. This is so because the Minister has selected seven medical specialties and sub-specialties from which candidates will be nominated for election to the exclusion of 41 other medical specialties and sub-specialties.
All of the above appears to us to suggest that fairness and democratic procedure is being abandoned and that the Minister will exert an excessive level of control over the medical profession in Ireland.
We feel that this is inappropriate and that, in the interest of fairness and justice and patients' best interest:
(1)there should be an equal level of medical and non-medical membership on the council and its various committees, including the fitness to practice committee;
(2)doctors should not be debarred from seeking election to council membership;
(3)the medical membership of council should be evenly divided between elected and appointed members;
(4)the minister should not have the authority to appoint all members to council. - Yours, etc,
HUGH C BREDIN, Consultant Urologist, Galway; BRENDAN HEALY, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Sligo; MIRIAM HOGAN, General Practitioner, Kilkenny; ASAM ISHTIAK, Consultant Surgeon, Kilkenny; EAMON McGUINNESS, Consultant Obstetrician, Gynaecologist, Dublin; BERNARD RUANE, General Practitioner, Tralee.