A UK-based doctor has been accused of creating a fake clinic on Harcourt Street, Dublin, in a bid to gain employment in Irish hospitals.
Dr Idowu Adeyemi Adeboro has also been accused of using falsely authenticated documents to gain registration by the Irish Medical Council, and of using false references and a false employment history in his efforts to gain work here.
Dr Adeboro, medically trained in Romania and the holder of a Spanish passport, has been suspended by the medical council after it emerged the documents he submitted in his registration application were falsely notarised.
He faces six allegations of professional misconduct at a fitness-to-practise hearing of the council, which began on Thursday.
Dr Adeboro, who is not attending the hearing, is accused of dishonesty in respect of the allegations.
The investigation was prompted by a complaint by a medical recruitment firm, Cowley Brown, after it received his CV in response to advertisements it had placed through an online platform seeking to fill junior hospital posts in Irish private hospitals.
Ken Cowley, director of the firm, said he had a suspicion that "things didn't seem quite right". The wording of the two references supplied by Dr Adeboro was very similar, and the two websites of the clinics where he had claimed to work were also very similar. When staff followed up later, one website was down and the domain name of the other was for sale.
In addition Mr Cowley said he was not familiar with the “St Emmanuel Hospital European Medical Centre Healthcare Limited”, with an address on Harcourt Street. Aside from the old children’s hospital on Harcourt Street, which closed in 1998, he had not heard of any medical clinic there.
No medical centre
Caoimhe Daly BL, for the medical council, said inquiries had revealed that St Emmanuel's was registered at the Companies Registration Office, and its directors were Dr Adebaro and Stella Idahosa.
The given address is 20 Harcourt Street, which is the location of an office suite company from which Dr Adebaro rented space in 2018.
“There was no medical centre operating at 20 Harcourt Street,” Ms Daly told the inquiry.
Dr Adebaro’s CV falsely described him as having worked as a “resident medical officer” in emergency medicine and/or general medicine at St Emmanuel’s from August 1st, 2017, to the present. The company was dissolved last month.
It also said he was a junior doctor at SMHG Hospital Standard Medical Healthcare Group in London, but this entity does not exist.
And it stated he was a clinical fellow engaging in an “attachment/observership” at a cancer institute in Florida, but this also was not true.
Two references supplied were also false. One was from a cardiologist, allegedly connected to SMHG, but no one by that name was registered in the UK. The other purported to be from a doctor in Florida, who has told the medical council he does not know Dr Adebaro and never supplied the reference.
Dr Adebaro (50), who qualified in Romania in 2017, had denied sending the CVs to Cowley Brown but had said the reference letters were “fine and from genuine sources”, Ms Daly said. He said the cardiologist was a friend of his and he had not been aware his friend was not registered in the UK.
‘Web of deceit’
Ms Daly said Dr Adebaro had registered St Emmanuel’s to support a “false employment history” and that the work experience recorded on his CV was “plainly not true”.
Referring to the “web of deceit” that had been created, she said there was “no reality or substance” to his claim that he was not involved. Who else stood to benefit, and who else would go to the bother of creating websites, she asked.
Dr Adebaro successfully applied to go on the register of the medical council, but subsequent checks have shown the documents it had relied upon were not properly notarised in the UK.
When asked about this, Dr Adebaro had explained he “got someone to have them notarised and then had no power over them,” the inquiry heard.
Dr Adebaro’s degree and passport had been checked and were genuine, Ms Daly said.
The hearing continues on Friday.
