Doctors in Norway’s Hammerfest Hospital first became concerned about their colleague, Gavriel Simha Furedi, shortly after he started working there as an ophthalmologist in March 2020.
Dr Furedi had a poor grasp of the language and was unable to understand basic Latin terms any doctor should know. He had trouble interpreting scans and sometimes did not read the medical notes of his patients, an investigation by The Irish Times, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and 50 other media outlets around the world has found.
More concerning was his lack of understanding of infection control and sterilisation procedures, something of particular concern given the arrival of Covid-19 in Norway that spring. He also struggled with administering injections and did not seem to improve with training.
[ Doctors sanctioned overseas able to retain licences to practise in IrelandOpens in new window ]
The doctor left the Hammerfest Hospital in July 2020 after just four months. Around the same time, two of his colleagues formally raised complaints about his medical competence.
RM Block
The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision, which oversees medical licences in the country, launched an investigation which, in June 2021, resulted in the doctor’s licence being suspended for six months. That December the board permanently struck him from the register, citing “serious deficiencies” in his professional competence.
A notification of Dr Furedi’s initial suspension and eventual erasure was sent to medical councils across Europe . This was done through the Internal Market Information (IMI) system, an information exchange for regulatory bodies in the European Economic Area.
Members are obliged to send IMI alerts whenever they issue a serious sanction against a practitioner, in case that doctor is also registered in another country.
Almost immediately, the notification caught the eye of the Irish Medical Council. Their records showed Dr Furedi was registered to practise in Ireland as an ophthalmologist. He had been admitted to the register six months previously in January 2021, after the start of the complaint procedure in Norway, but before the doctor’s suspension.
Irish officials wrote to their Norwegian counterparts seeking additional information on the doctor’s case so they could launch their own investigation.
That’s where matters stalled. The Irish Medical Council repeatedly wrote to the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision requesting all the relevant case documents.
Some documents were sent over but others, such as transcripts of hearings and contact details for patients affected by Dr Furedi’s failings, were not forthcoming. The Norwegians told Irish officials they did not have them.
[ Doctor suspended abroad was still licensed in Ireland, investigation finds ]
The Irish officials decided to take action anyway. Following an application by the medical council, the High Court suspended Dr Furedi’s Irish registration in May 2023 pending a full hearing.
By that stage, Dr Furedi had been free to practise in Ireland for two years after he had been suspended in Norway for lacking basic medical knowledge. Whether he did work here is not clear. The medical council refused to answer questions on the matter, citing “an ongoing regulatory process”.
A full hearing on Dr Furedi’s Irish registration is pending and Irish officials are waiting on documents, which Norwegian officials say do not exist.
Dr Furedi is still working as an eye specialist in a clinic in his native Romania. As of yesterday, a patient could get an eye exam with him for the equivalent of €60.
This is despite Romania being notified of the actions taken by the Norwegian and Irish authorities. Neither Dr Furedi or the Romanian medical authority responded to requests for comment on Thursday.
His case is far from unique. A six-month reporting project by 50 media outlets from around the world, including The Irish Times, collated doctors’ disciplinary records from 45 countries as part of an investigation into how disciplinary information is shared between countries.
More than 2.5 million records were entered into a specially designed computer programme that looked for instances of a doctor sanctioned in one country and registered to practise in another.
Reporters found dozens of cases where doctors were able to continue practising in a country after being struck off or suspended in another jurisdiction. Many more cases were found of doctors who were subject to restrictions or lesser sanctions that were not recorded on their licences in other countries.
The data raises questions over how effective the information-sharing system is, as well as the level of information on doctors’ pasts that should be made available to the public by authorities.
In Ireland 11 confirmed cases were found of doctors who were sanctioned abroad and who were able to retain their ability to practise here without any record of their misconduct appearing on public records. It is not clear if any of these doctors continue to practise in Ireland.
Another 17 doctors were found to have been struck off or sanctioned in Ireland but able to continue practising overseas.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he had “concerns” about the findings of investigation.
“I think the Medical Council has a clear responsibility here. Systems have to be very robust and resilient in respect of tracking what’s happening in other countries, particularly in United Kingdom or in European Union member states, or anywhere for that matter,” he said.
Stephen McMahon, chair of the Irish Patients Association said the investigation “exposes a fundamental betrayal of patient trust”.
Under EU regulations patients have an “explicit right to information about healthcare providers’ sanctions. When overseas sanctions aren’t displayed on our Medical Council’s public register, patients cannot give truly informed consent,” Mr McMahon said.
He called for “mandatory public disclosure of all overseas sanctions, automated verification systems, and elimination of regulatory discretion that prioritises professional mobility over patient safety”.
The IMI system is designed to provide almost instant alerts to members when a doctor faces a serious sanction. But cases frequently fall through the cracks and some countries, such as Malta, Estonia and Greece rarely use it at all, data shows.
Others simply do not have access. In 2008 Dr Siad Ahmad Zia applied for a role in Sligo General Hospital without revealing he had been suspended by the UK’s General Medical Council following a complaint about his treatment of two child patients. In 2013 he was erased from the Irish register for failing to disclose the UK investigation.
Today, he continues to work in paediatric clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, a country which is not on the IMI system. There is no record of the UK or Irish sanctions on his Swiss public record.
A spokeswoman for the health authority in Zurich said “proactive reporting” about sanctioned doctors is unusual. “The Canton of Zurich independently reviews, on the basis of documents, whether a licence to practise can be granted,” she said.
In a lengthy emailed reply, Dr Zia said he was “not aware of any problems in Ireland”. He disputed the findings of the UK tribunal and said they have no relevance to his work in Switzerland.
Other countries are members of the IMI but can appear indifferent when it issues an alert.
Dr Ragheb Nouman was struck off in the UK in 2016 and in Ireland in 2022 after making racist comments against Indian colleagues. Like Dr Furedi, he continues to work in a Romanian clinic.
When asked about the case, a spokesman for the Romania medical council said it is unaware of any finding against Dr Nouman that would impact his ability to work in Romania.
“The Romanian College of Physicians is not in the legal position to impose a ban on Dr Nouman practising in Romania based solely on the sanction in UK/Ireland,” he said.
The Irish Medical Council said it has dealt with all cases highlighted by The Irish Times in line with proper procedure. It also stood over the robustness of the IMI system.
