THE MEDICAL Council is investigating allegations against a Cork based GP that she overprescribed tranquillisers to a number of patients.
Details of the investigation emerged yesterday when a solicitor representing Dr Iwona Kulczyk-Repec asked the Medical Council’s fitness to practise committee to postpone holding an inquiry into allegations against her until September.
The inquiry was due to begin in Cork today but Tom Coughlan, for the doctor who trained in Poland, said he had only begun to receive instructions in the case late last week as a result of another solicitor having to come off record due to a possible conflict of interest.
He said he couldn’t give his client proper representation with just a few days’ notice.
He added that the doctor would admit to certain pressures she feels she was under which led to poor professional performance in some instances. There were a certain number of prescriptions that in hindsight she acknowledged were “too high”, he said.
JP McDowell, solicitor for the Medical Council, said the intention was to hold the fitness to practise inquiry partly in public and partly in private and a number of patient witnesses, including some who were now in Cork prison, had been lined up to give evidence over three days this week.
He said there could be merit in hearing these witnesses as planned as it could be difficult to get them all together again, and then adjourning the inquiry to some future date that suited Mr Coughlan.
Acknowledging the difficulties on all sides, the committee agreed to adjourn the case to September on the advice of their legal adviser.
