The Medical Council decided yesterday that Cork GP Dr James Barry should be struck off the medical register.
The decision was taken at a full meeting of the council after it considered a report from its fitness to practise committee, which inquired into a number of complaints made against the 81-year-old doctor.
The fitness to practise committee found Dr Barry, from Lauriston Lodge, Glanmire, Co Cork, guilty of professional misconduct in respect of his treatment of eight different patients. He has 21 days to appeal the ruling to the High Court.
He is considered likely to appeal as he has already claimed inadmissible evidence was allowed, that his age was not taken into account by the fitness to practise committee which heard evidence until 4 pm each day even though he departed each day at noon, and that he wasn't given the right "to confront each patient" who made allegations against him.
The fitness to practise committee ruled that in one case, Dr Barry had made sexual advances to a patient and made indecent suggestions to her. In a number of other cases he was found to have undertaken inappropriate and/or improper medical examinations and/or treatment of female patients. Furthermore, he was found to have taken inappropriate and improper photographic records of patients.
Dr Barry was facing more than 200 charges of sexually assaulting former patients before the proceedings were stopped on foot of a European Court of Human Rights ruling last December.
Meanwhile, the Medical Council, at its meeting yesterday, also decided to refer the report of the independent inquiry into the death of Pat Joe Walsh to its fitness to practise committee. Mr Walsh bled to death at Monaghan General Hospital last October after doctors failed in their bid to transfer him to hospitals in Cavan or Drogheda for emergency surgery. The inquiry found the unwillingness of surgeons to accept him in Cavan or Drogheda was unacceptable. They also found that the on-call consultant in Monaghan should have made direct contact with consultants in Cavan and Drogheda to try and effect the transfer himself.
The council's fitness to practise committee will have to decide if the findings made against the doctors in the report are serious enough to warrant it holding a full fitness to practise inquiry into the doctors' conduct.
Last night, after its meeting, the council published a booklet of the procedures it proposes to use to ensure all doctors are maintaining competence and professional standards. Some 200 GPs will be asked to volunteer to have their practice audited over the next six months as part of an initial pilot project.
The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, said its publication was timely and she urged doctors to participate.
Furthermore, she said she wanted to continue to focus on a number of specific issues, including A&E, care of the elderly, and getting consultants to agree a new contract. She indicated she expected developments soon on the stalled consultant contract talks.
