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Former Barringtons' doctor found guility of professional misconduct
A LOCUM pathologist who was central to the delayed diagnosis of a Barringtons' Hospital breast cancer patient has been found guilty of professional misconduct and sanctioned by the Irish Medical Council's fitness-to-practice committee.
The matter will now go before the next full meeting of the Council for a final decision.
Dr Antoine Geagea, a Lebanese now based in Finland, worked in the pathology lab of University Hospital Galway between September 2006 and March 2007. It was to this lab that Barringtons' sent two breast tissue samples of the Tipperary woman, now in her mid-50s, known in Government reports only as Patient A.
Both biopsies, sent in September 2005 and March 2007, were misread as benign by two separate pathologists including Dr Geagea. This resulted in an 18-month delay in treatment for the Tipperary woman.
Barringtons' subsequently sent a third sample to a lab in Cork where it was discovered the cancer was malignant and the patient in question had to undergo chemotherapy and a mastectomy.
Health quality watchdog HIQA made the complaint about Dr Geagea to the Council following its report on standards at the Galway laboratory. HIQA said its review had uncovered 50 errors in the doctor's work and the error rate of 6.5 per cent was higher than acceptable.
The Tipperary woman was present at the fitness-to-practice committee hearing in Dublin last week. Dr Geagea was not there but sent submissions from Finland seeking for the committee to meet in private for fear of media "misinterpretation".
Dr Geagea submitted he had been hired as a locum by the HSE to work on gynaecological cytology but was later asked to work in other areas of cytology.
He complained he had received little feedback and that slides in the Galway lab were not up to standard. He believed his error rate was lower than had been stated by HIQA and added he had received a "glowing reference" from superiors at the Galway hospital. The affair had damaged Dr Geagea's professional reputation and he felt he had been unfairly attacked.
In spite of these submissions, the fitness to practice committee has recommended he should be censured and a number of conditions attached if he is to remain on the medical register in Ireland.
These include that he should no longer carry out non-gynaecological cytology unless supervised and that he gets training in the area.
Evidence was heard from Prof Elaine Kay of Beaumount Hospital that Dr Geagea's reporting was not up to standard and there had been "too many mistakes" and the committee agreed the doctor's error rate was not acceptable.
A Medical Council spokesman confirmed to the Limerick Leader this week that "the report from the Fitness to Practice Committee in relation to Dr Geagea will come before Council at its next meeting".
The Council may decide to censure Dr Geagea in writing, fine him no more than €5,000, suspend or attach conditions to his registration, or take other action at its discretion.
Barringtons' Hospital, meanwhile, declined to comment on the fitness to practice committee's recommendations when contacted this week.
The private hospital, at George's Quay, Limerick, agreed to a request from Health Minister Mary Harney to stop treating cancer patients in August 2007 after cancer misdiagnoses scandals at various hospitals around the country forced the Government to concentrate cancer care in eight regional centres of excellence, including Limerick Regional Hospital, where multidisciplinary teams of specialists could assess and treat cancer cases.
Barringtons' came in for criticism at the time and an independent review in 2008 concluded 40 per cent of almost 300 women treated there in the four years up to August 2007 had not received appropriate care.
No new misdiagnoses were uncovered in that review and at the time Barringtons managing director Denis Cahalane defended the "cautious approach" of a surgeon criticised for carrying out unnecessary and precipitous lump removals which left women disfigured.
After Patient A demanded for tighter regulation of private hospitals, Barringtons noted the medical errors central to her misdiagnoses occurred on a public hospital site.
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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