A GP yesterday agreed she should not have given out prescribed tranquillisers in large quantities to some 86 patients but insisted she did so because she had been threatened by some who had drug addiction problems.
Dr Iwona Kulczyk told a fitness to practise hearing of the Irish Medical Council that she accepted her behaviour amounted to the lesser offence of poor professional performance. She did not believe that it was such as to constitute the more serious charge of professional misconduct.
Dr Kulczyk said she had been a doctor for almost 20 years, including over a decade working in her native Poland and she never had any problems until July 2008, a month after she went into private practice on her own at Penrose Wharf in Cork city.
“I’m working for about 20 years and I never had a problem in my career – I never had a problem with my patients so I think I deserve a chance and some understanding,” said Dr Kulczyk, who began working with a relief practice in Ireland in 2006.
She accepted some of the prescriptions she issued were for large amounts and, while she gave some reducing dosages, there were others who would not accept this and she continued to prescribe what they were asking for as she was fearful. Dr Kulczyk said the people who came to her were very aggressive and she was assaulted three times, including once when a patient threatened to burn down her surgery.
“He said if don’t give him the prescription, he will fire up the surgery – I was even attacked physically.”
It was only after a visit from Det Sgt Jason Lynch of the Cork City Divisional Drugs Squad that she began to feel more secure as he told her the drugs could be sold on the streets.
He explained to her how to refuse drugs to patients coming to her for prescriptions.
Cross-examined by Patrick Leonard, for the committee, Dr Kulczyk said she charged €50 per consultation though sometimes she didn’t charge patients as they didn’t have the money.
When Mr Leonard suggested to Dr Kulczyk the reason patients with addictions were going to her rather than their own GPs was because they could get benzodiazepines from her for €50, she said: “Maybe they were thinking like that – I can agree with that.”
Dr Kulczyk also said she referred almost all 86 patients with addiction problems to the psychiatry department at Cork University Hospital (CUH) but she didn’t think any of them ever presented so she didn’t think CUH would ever have received referral letters.
The hearing continues today.