Judge queries ‘mere censure’ for doctor over language competency

The president of the High Court has expressed concern about the penalty recommended for a Sudanese doctor who provided a questionable certificate of his English language competency in order to work here.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly said a "mere censure" and a requirement that Dr Mohamed Abdelrahman undergo an ethics course did not seem to the court to reflect the seriousness of what he had done.

The Medical Council brought the censure recommendation before the court arising out of an inquiry last August in which the doctor was found guilty of professional misconduct.

The judge declined to go along with the recommendation, saying that while he was not forming a view at this stage as to what the penalty should be, the censure did not seem proportionate given the seriousness of what had occurred.

Adjourned

He said he first wanted to hear both from the Medical Council and from the doctor himself and adjourned the matter for two weeks.

Dr Abdelrahman, who works in obstetrics and gynaecology in Letterkenny General Hospital, was found guilty of three counts of professional misconduct by a Medical Council fitness-to-practise inquiry.

The inquiry found he had presented a letter in 2012, purporting to be from the British General Medical Council, that he had passed a language competency test.

The inquiry heard that the British authorities were not satisfied with an internationally recognised certificate he had provided as to his competency in writing and speaking English. It was established that he scores on the test were not correct.

Dr Abdelrahman sat the English exam in Sudan and later claimed that he had been the victim of fraud there.

He later sat an English language exam again and got the appropriate certificate.

While he accepted the factual allegations before this inquiry, his lawyer told the committee he was a very young doctor, just 22, at the time of the events. He was a doctor with an excellent academic record and there were no issues about patient safety, he added.

The inquiry also found he had failed to disclose on a number of occasions when he applied for registration here he had been refused registration in Britain.

Mr Justice Kelly said he did not see how, in this case, censure and doing an ethics course could serve public confidence in the medical profession.