Madam, - Stephen Boyle (March 24th) takes your columnist Maurice Neligan to task for claiming that the Medical Practitioners Bill would permit the Minister of Health to issue directives to the Medical Council on ethical issues. The position, in fact, is much worse than that. By establishing a lay non-medical majority on the 25 member Council, the new legislation would remove overall control and independence from the doctors, with disastrous consequences for doctors, patients and public confidence.
The Minister for Health would have the power to dismiss doctors from the council who refused to obey his/her orders, or those of the EU. In certain circumstances, the Minister could sack all members of the council.
Crises would arise where medical policies/procedures, concerning the welfare of patients, conflicted with political programmes and ideologies. The hippocratic oath is taken by doctors, not by politicians.
The present Health Minister, Mary Harney, is in my view intent on breaking down the Medical Council's opposition to any legislation which would give effect to the erroneous Supreme Court judgment in the 1992 X case. A majority of abortion-minded fellow-travellers on the council would greatly facilitate this demolition.
Since abortion is not mentioned in the proposed Bill, there is no obligation to hold a referendum to obtain the views of the electorate. The Irish people's consistent democratic rejection of induced abortion, over the past 25 years, is in danger of being circumvented by an unprincipled political stroke. No other country, incidentally, has a lay majority on its medical council.
- Yours, etc,
PATRICK MOLLOY, Brackenstown, Swords, Co Dublin.