A FRENCH GP who was suspended from practising in the UK and France failed to inform the Irish Medical Council of his history when he registered in Ireland, a fitness-to-practice hearing was told yesterday.
The Irish Medical Council in Dublin was told Dr Herve Doustaing was found to have “interfered in the private lives of his patients” and had three criminal convictions in France.
The 52-year-old has been accused of six counts of professional misconduct, all relating to his failure to disclose his conviction and suspension history when he applied to register to practise in Ireland.
Dr Doustaing was convicted of two counts of tax fraud in 1996, and one of having “abused the ignorance of a vulnerable person” by convincing a patient to sell him furniture in 1997. Also in 1997, he was convicted of verbally assaulting a police officer in an incident involving a car, the council was told.
Solicitor for the Irish Medical Council JP McDowell said the doctor was suspended from practising in parts of France for varying lengths of time from 2002 on.
The reasons for the suspensions included “interfering in the private lives of his patients” and issuing prescriptions over the telephone via his secretary.
He was also found to have excessively charged patients who had presented with E111 medical insurance forms after having skiing accidents in the Pyrenees. He was also found to have made false entries in records relating to some patients.
He was suspended from treating public patients in the Pyrenees area for two years. He was found to have misdiagnosed a patient, to have given inappropriate treatment and to have overcharged a patient in another region of France.
He was suspended from practising for six months in 2006 for having failed to notify the medical council in a third region of France of his previous suspensions.
Two other cases are still before the French medical council, Nationale de l’Orde des Médecins, one of which has been appealed to the French supreme court. When Dr Doustaing applied to the General Medical Council to practise in the UK in 2003 and failed to declare his history he was suspended from practising there too.
In October 2004, Dr Doustaing applied to practise in Ireland.
The council was told he replied “No” when asked on his application form about criminal convictions or whether he had been the subject of disciplinary hearings or had ever been suspended.
His application was accepted and he was registered to practise in Ireland. His registration address was Nice, in France, but he also had a correspondence address in Warrenpoint, Co Down. There was no evidence heard about whether he had actually practised in Ireland.
Counsel for Dr Doustaing, Cian Moloney, said his client did not believe the actions against him in France were disciplinary matters.
He was not suspended from treating patients with social insurance, he claimed, but if he had treated them they would not have been able to claim back the costs from their insurance.
Other findings against him were administrative and so did not need to be mentioned on his application form. His client’s actions were “in no way designed to hide any relevant facts from any authorities”, Mr Moloney said.
Giving evidence via telephone, Dr Jackie Ahr, general secretary of the Nationale de l’Orde des Médecins, said Dr Doustaing was currently suspended in France following two other matters, both of which were being appealed.
The inquiry is expected to reconvene to hear evidence from Dr Doustaing in late March.
