Medical Practitioners Bill

Dr Galen

Now I know its 108 pages long and only just piblished so I doubt many of you have read it all yet......but I was wondering what people. especialy the doc's on here think of this?

I've copied a few relevant summaries from RTE.ie on here to provoke some discussion.

Personally I feel that new leglisation was overdue to govern the medical profession, but to be honest a lot of this seems to be knee jerk and smells like a way thought uo by Madam Harney & Co to put the medics in their place.

I would have liked to have seena bit more consultation on it all, and as well from what I've read it gives significant extra powers to the Minister/Government, over some fairly ethically heavy issues.

anyways

enjoy....:o

Under the proposed new legislation published today by the Government, Medical Council inquiries into doctors' conduct will be held in public.

A majority of the members of an inquiry team will not be doctors.

Doctors will also be required to maintain their professional competence on an ongoing basis and the Health Service Executive and hospitals will be obliged to facilitate this.

While the Medical Council will continue to have 25 members, most of those on it will not be appointed by doctors.

Reform of the registration system will allow patients to obtain more information on the level of competence of their doctor

.

And a preliminary screening process for complaints will be established, under which some complaints can be referred to the HSE complaints system

Dr Liam Twomey, Fine Gael's Health spokesperson, expressed concern about the levels of power the bill would grant to the Minister. He said absolute power was always open to abuse.

AdvertisementHowever, Ms Harney said the levels of ministerial power were appropriate for the purpose of regulating doctors on matters of public policy.

She also rejected claims by the Opposition that controversial practices like stem cell research and abortion could be brought in by ministerial directive under the Bill.

Doctors from outside the EU, including those with refugee status, will have their qualifications recognised and will be able to practise as specialists in Ireland under the new legislation.

Ms Harney said she hoped this would bring more expertise into the health system.

tallaght01

Pretty much describes the situation we have here in the UK. Power hungry lay ppl sitting on the General Medical Council who don't have a clue about medical issues. We very much have a system of "guilty until proven innocent" with regard to complaints because of it. I've never met a doctor who's said anything positive about the GMC. I've never been in trouble with them before, but I've seen people who have been, and it's like a witch burning!!!

So when you're name has been dragged through the mud in public, and people are saying "well there's no smoke without fire" and you're in the newspapers and you're subsequently found to be innocent, they don't send you an apology. They send this letter that effectively says "You got away this time, bad doctor man, but we'll be watching you in the future". For this nonsense, I pay 360 quid a year.

My question is...why do docs have to pay for a system that's there to protect the public?

Traumadoc

Its interesting that they want to recognise overseas qualifications: It may undermine Irish training ( which may not be a bad thing) It takes anything from 7 to 17 post graduate years to train specialists here while only 4 to 6 in the US.

I suspect many irish graduates will go to the US, be trained in 4 years and return as consultants to supervise their classmates applying for their first registrar jobs.