Hospital doctor faces allegations of unreliability and harassment

A DOCTOR employed at a Galway hospital was so unreliable “the hospital couldn’t continue to employ him”, a Medical Council fitness-to-practise inquiry was told yesterday.

James Keane, medical manpower manager at University Hospital Galway, said the hospital couldn’t rely on Dr Onada Olajide Onada to supply a safe service.

Dr Onada (40) faced seven allegations of professional misconduct at the inquiry yesterday. Among the allegations were that he had engaged in harassing, inappropriate or intimidating verbal, email or SMS communications with up to four female colleagues while working at the hospital as a senior house officer from August 2010 to January this year.

It was also alleged that he had failed to respond to his pager, failed to inform the hospital in time that he would not be attending for duty and failed to take blood specimens from patients in a timely manner.

Dr Onada was dismissed from the hospital after a series of disciplinary meetings. Mr Keane said the doctor repeatedly failed to respond to his bleep, and he left a vital cardiac bleep unattended in the outpatients department. Cardiac bleeps were supposed to be handed from one doctor to another as they changed shift.

Though he was given opportunities to change his behaviour he did not, Mr Keane said. Dr Onada was called to a disciplinary meeting on January 18th and failed to appear.

He was bleeped and didn’t respond but was eventually tracked down and the meeting was rescheduled for the following day.

“It did not seem to register with him that this was a very serious issue and had very serious consequences for patient care,” Mr Keane said. In the 10 years he had worked at the hospital he had never recommended a medical employee for dismissal, he said.

After Dr Onada was dismissed, Mr Keane made a complaint to the Medical Council. Dr Onada, who represented himself at the inquiry, questioned Mr Keane about his employment contract and said it was “very, very derogatory to put a senior house officer on an intern’s pay scale”. But legal assessor for the inquiry, Seamus Woulfe SC, said the issue wasn’t relevant.

“This committee can’t have a parallel inquiry into your dismissal; this [inquiry] is in relation to allegations of professional misconduct,” he said. The case continues in the new year.