The Southern Health Board has refused to circulate letters sent to board members last week by a leading orthodontist sharply criticising waiting lists.
The letters were written by the board's only consultant orthodontist, Mr Ian O'Dowling, who oversees the work of eight public dentists in Cork and Kerry. The Cork-based consultant has complained frequently about the state of national services, including before the Oireachtas Health and Children Committee.
In his letter, Mr O'Dowling denounced the performance of the Department of Health and Children, alleging that it "actively worked" to deny patients treatment.
Last July, he, along with two colleagues, Dr Triona McNamara and Dr Antonia Hewson, alleged that they had suffered intimidation because of their complaints.
Limerick-based orthodontic consultant, Ms McNamara warned the Mid-Western Health Board last month that children's health is being damaged.
The country's dental schools and private orthodontists have colluded to undermine health board-provided regional public services, the consultant alleged.
Waiting list delays are necessary, provoke "genuine frustration amongst parents" and have led to feelings of "frustration, anger and despair" amongst he and his staff, he wrote.
Demanding an independent inquiry, Mr O'Dowling said an ongoing examination of services by a committee of health board chief executives would achieve nothing.
"You are now faced as a board member with two consultant orthodontists from two separate health boards being openly critical of the conduct and behaviour of the Department." However, the circulation of Mr O'Dowling's letter was blocked by the chief executive, Mr Seán Hurley because of criticisms included in it of the Western Health Board.
"Some Western Health Board patients who come within the Department of Health guidelines are rejected for treatment in an effort to artificially reduce the waiting lists," Mr O'Dowling had alleged.
The Minister "is aware of it, yet nothing has been done to protect children in the WHB from being refused treatment" even though they come within guidelines laid down in 1985'.
In a letter to Mr O'Dowling yesterday, the SHB chief executive said he had sought legal advice about the letter because he had "some concerns" about the contents. The advice received indicated, he said, that various references in the letter, and in the accompanying one from Dr McNamara, could be defamatory.
Mr O'Dowling, who said he had written only to councillors and medical representatives sitting on the SHB, asked why private mail should have been intercepted. "I made the deliberate decision not to send it to the SHB executive. And I sent them to the SHB's head office in the Farm Centre in Cork," he told The Irish Times.
Questioned about the interception, an SHB spokeswoman said one of the letters to the health board chairman, Cllr Damien Wallace, had been opened by his secretary.
"She brought it to the attention of the chief executive and chairman. Our legal advice is that we would have been responsible for it if we had circulated it," she said.
The other letters from Mr O'Dowling were then intercepted: "They were not opened, but we were sure that they were copies of the one received by the chairman," she went on.
Changes made to the training of orthodontists in 1999 by Health and Children have increased the role played by dental hospitals, to the displeasure of some consultants.
Besides using more private orthodontists, Health and Children also created an auxiliary grade of orthodontic therapist, to work alongside consultants and other dentists.