Mid-term elections in the Medical Council usually pass off almost unnoticed. But not so this time around, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent
In three weeks, the Medical Council, the body which regulates the medical profession and adjudicates on complaints against doctors, will hold internal mid-term elections to fill a number of key posts.
The electorate will be small. Only existing council members, about 25 in all, will be able to cast votes to agree on a person for the post of council president and vice-president, as well as on a chairman or woman for a number of internal committees for the second half of the council's five-year term.
While it has become customary over the past decade or so for the Medical Council to hold mid-term elections, they normally pass off almost unnoticed, usually with those already occupying the prestigious posts of president and vice-president of the council remaining in office. After mid-term elections during the life of the last council, for instance, Prof Gerard Bury remained in the office of president.
What is interesting about next month's mid-term elections however is that some members of the current council have been saying they want a change of president and two council members have been nominated to run for the job in opposition to the existing council president, Dr John Hillery, who wants to remain in office.
Those nominated to run against him are the current vice-president of the council and former president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association Dr Colm Quigley, and Dr Conor O'Keane, a pathologist at Dublin's Mater hospital.
It is clear the contest has taken some council members by surprise. But given that several members of the council are extremely exercised at the recently published heads of a new Medical Practitioners Act which they fear could lead to a situation where the council could end up with a majority lay membership, a contest could hardly be completely unexpected.
Some privately feel Dr Hillery, who has actually in the past indicated he favoured a medical majority on council, should be speaking out more vociferously against proposals in the new Bill, making it clear to the Minister for Health that a lay majority would not be acceptable to many council members.
Dr Hillery said yesterday he was delighted the heads of Bill for the new Medical Practitioners Act were "stirring debate in the profession and outside it".
He says he believes the priority issues, in the new Bill, are ensuring the independence of future medical councils to represent the public interest and the resourcing of the structures he and his predecessors have been calling for.
"The system we have been calling for to support high standards and reassure the public will not work in practice unless they are properly resourced," he says.
Dr Quigley says he hadn't intended to run for the office of president and had in fact nominated Dr Hillery to stay on as president at a meeting of the council earlier this month. However, he says he was then approached by other council members after the meeting who asked him to run.
"I hadn't planned to run because I felt that the council had been a good council over the last 2½ years and had worked very well. I felt a challenge to the president could be divisive and unhelpful but council members approached me and were clear in their own minds they wanted a contest for presidency," he says.
"I have always had a good working relationship with John Hillery. I feel the council has done an awful lot of good work in the last 2½ years but I feel we can do better," he says.
"I would not undertake this [ running in the election] if I didn't feel I could do a better job," he says.
He expresses the view that it is important for the council, which has a key role in protecting the public, to have the confidence of the medical profession.
Asked if the profession has lost confidence in the council, he replies: "That is a possibility."
He adds: "I think what we have to do from now on is have full engagement with the profession and keep them and the public up to date on what we are trying to achieve."
He also says he believes the council must have a medical majority, it must be independent of Government and be capable of taking on forceful discussions with the Minister for Health of the day to ensure that the resources needed to protect patients are available.
Dr O'Keane, the third candidate in the race for the presidency, has been away in recent days and could not be contacted.
The elections will take place on October 18th.