A DOCTOR who it was alleged had “put her career before honour” when she failed to return to work in her home country of Kenya after being funded to study radiology in Ireland for four years, has been found not guilty of professional misconduct.
A medical council fitness to practise inquiry ruled that while two of three allegations levelled against Dr Irene Mwangi were proven, they did not amount to professional misconduct.
The inquiry, which sat in May and December last year, heard she was funded to study for a radiology fellowship at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland through a trust established by Joseph Linders in memory of his late wife Dr Dara O’Halpin, who worked as a radiologist at Temple Street hospital.
Participants in the scholarship programme were given to understand they would have to work for five years at a Nairobi hospital on completion of the course.
Dr Mwangi completed the course, a farewell lunch was held for her in Mr Linders’s house and she was expected to begin work at the Mater Hospital, Nairobi, on August 1st, 2008, but she never turned up, the inquiry was told.
Medical director of the hospital Sr Marian Dolan said she sat beside Dr Mwangi at the farewell lunch and was given to understand she was travelling to Kenya to work in the hospital the following month. However, she did not turn up.
Sr Dolan said she was “dumbfounded” when Dr Mwangi eventually e-mailed the hospital to say she was not planning to work there at all. “I do believe that she put her career before honour,” she said.
On the day she was to begin work in Nairobi, she took up a post at the University of California hospital in San Diego.
The Nairobi hospital, the RCSI and solicitors for Mr Linders told the Medical Council, alleging she breached a memorandum of understanding that had been entered into when she was awarded the scholarship worth €245,000.
Dr Mwangi, who gave evidence by video link from the US, said the allegations against her were baseless. She compared her stay in Dublin to a bad marriage: “It started out with great vision and expectation, but gradually, during my four years in Dublin, I felt used and misused and I wanted to get out of it.”
When she raised the possibility with the RCSI of studying in Ireland for a fifth year, she said a doctor at the college said if she ever mentioned it again she would be deported immediately.
She had decided not to return to Kenya by December 2007. She then sought a written opinion from lawyers in Nairobi, which said the memorandum of understanding she had signed was not a legally binding document.
The fitness to practise committee found it proven that she failed to take up the post in Kenya in breach of a memorandum of understanding between her and the Nairobi hospital but said it was not proven that this was in breach of the terms of the scholarship.
It also found proven the allegation that she failed to provide any notice she would not take up the job in Kenya, but a third allegation, that she acted in a manner derogatory to the medical profession, was found not proven.
The committee’s findings were upheld by a full meeting of the medical council on January 18th and the complaint against Dr Mwangi was dismissed.