A leading heart surgeon said the spiral in medical negligence cases over the past 25 years has detrimentally affected patient care.
Mr Maurice Nelligan, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the Mater Hospital, has also criticised archaic language and procedures of legal practice as being unhelpful in dealing with allegations of medical malpractice. He was speaking at a conference on "Medicine and the Law: The Future for Ireland", in Dublin yesterday. On whether litigation impacts on medical practice, Mr Nelligan noted: "We have the highest claim rate in the EU and the highest awards." One in four consultants was sued by patients every year, he said, and this was having a knock-on effect on the training of specialists.
According to Mr Nelligan, it is becoming hard to delegate tasks to doctors-in-training because of the litigation crisis; this in turn raises questions about the number of technical procedures an individual doctor must perform every year in order to maintain competence.
He also predicted that the withdrawal of the Medical Defence Union from providing insurance cover for consultant obstetricians could signal the end of private obstetric practice in the State.
As one-sixth of babies born here are delivered by private obstetricians - whose malpractice insurance is not subsidised by the State - he expressed concern about the ability of the Republic's public maternity hospitals to cope with the extra workload should private maternity practice cease.
The Professor of Genetics at Trinity College questioned whether families in the Republic with genetic disorders have been given adequate genetic counselling in the past.
Prof David McConnell said the question must be asked whether any families had more than one child with haemophilia, and if so, whether this was by choice. "Did the parents know of the risks and were they prepared for the outcome if they had another child? Did they not know of the risks because they had not been told by doctors?"