Sir, Tom Cooney, Medical Law UCD (March 20th) supports the united view of the courts and the family in the Ward of Court case. Dr Bill Tormey objects. He says the Cooney article "cannot be left as the final comment". Since the day Padraig O Morain brought this case to notice in The Irish Times almost all of the published sense of outrage, particularly at the Medical Ethics Committee, has come from doctors. Why did Dr Bill Tormey ignore them all and go for Tom Cooney? Mr Cooney is merely agreeing with them in a kindlier way. Dr Maire Walsh (March 4th) "We know the GMC (General Medical Council) was not a unanimous decision. Why was the view of dissenting members withheld?"
J.G. Burke consultant, (March 5th) calls the GMC Ethics Committee statement "a cold comment. It could have been more humanely expressed it certainly seemed intimidating and perhaps was to many who would have wished to help." He notes the Bord Altranais (nursing board) statement is "positively condemnatory of its members who would assist". Dr Burke "read with regret" the refusal of the Medical Ethics Committee to tell the family, even informally, if they intended to act against any doctor who might help. The public now knows that the Bord Altranais demand for a professional boycott of this dying woman was about as representative of Irish nurses as my granny's cat. Eight nurses came forward at once to help, risking loss of registration. Indeed one of them, Patricia Hallahan, RGN, SCM (March 14th), dealt promptly in The Irish Times with the lurid medical fiction which Dr Noreen O Carroll, philosopher, tried to attach to the case. Like the rest of fundamentalist pseudo medical horror data in use outside medical practice of course in Ireland today it was imported from the USA.
Dr Paddy Leahy (March 15th) points out that this was "a case of great importance and complexity". He notes that the judges took "almost four hours" to read out their judgment. It is at least arguable that they were doing the General Medical Council's job of necessity. It should never have been forced into the courts for decision. It was a medical matter to be decided privately between the senior doctor and the family, years ago, when the futility of repeated surgery, feeding tubes, antibiotics, bladder tubes and everything else became obvious. As Dr Burke says "doctors constantly take decisions about maximising and minimising investigation and treatment indeed allowing death we have always done this." The man is telling the simple truth and every doctor on the GMC knows that.
Seamus H. O'Friel, surgeon, makes the most shrewd comment of all. He objects to all this suffering going on behind closed doors. "Money is paid and people are expected to remain silent." He notes that the ordinary obstetrician/ gynaecologist has now an annual insurance liability of £30,000. Is this fair to the majority?
The family is now finished with the case. The girl is with God real God not the fellow who gives brownie points for keeping an insensate body pulsating for 23 years in spite of heartbroken protests from the next of kin. That impostor god is a menace. The public is not finished with the implications of this case. The public needs to know if a doctor's professional judgment is, of economic necessity, in tally to the ideology acceptable or not to patients and relatives of the titular owners/managers of the hospital/ hospice building. We need to know if the ordinary IMA member is aware that representative medical bodies are a particular target for infiltration. Remember the ructions in the Institute of Obstetrics Gynaecologists here in 1983? Remember the press apology and the admission that the statement of support for the referendum without any reservations was not the view of the institute? Remember when the scientologists ferreted in and tried to take over the psychiatric services in England? (June 2nd 1973). Remember the British high' court making the cult pay substantial damages and costs to the Minister for Health, Kenneth Robinson? How many Irish medical organisation members agree with the courts? If they do how representative is the Medical Ethics Committee? The public interest in Irish medical politics is only beginning. In the Ward of Court case all things considered maybe we should ask the Reynolds Question. Yours, etc., Abbeyfield House, Wicklow Town.