GP found guilty of professional misconduct over failure to have indemnity insurance

Seán McCárthaigh

A locum GP who practised without professional indemnity insurance and failed to notify an employer of conditions imposed on him by the High Court has been found guilty of professional misconduct.

A fitness-to-practise inquiry of the Medical Council found three allegations of professional misconduct proven against Dr Eltayeb Elkhabir – a native of Sudan who has been registered to practise in Ireland since 2004 – in relation to periods he was working as a locum in Dublin and Kildare.

The chairperson of the inquiry, Marie Culliton, said the doctor’s actions were “disgraceful and dishonourable” and the findings of professional misconduct were deserving of the strongest criticism.

Ms Culliton noted that the failure to have professional insurance indemnity also represented a breach of Section 38 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007.

Dr Elkhabir had admitted that before commencing work as a locum with Medixclinic, Beacon Court, Sandyford, Co Dublin, and while working there between December 19th, 2022, and January 6th, 2023, he failed to notify his employer about conditions attached to his registration by a High Court order from November 2013.

The married father of four, who qualified as a doctor in 1996, also accepted that he had worked at Medixclinic at a time when he did not have any or appropriate professional indemnity cover in place.

Dr Elkhabir further admitted that he had also worked at the MyDocs surgery in Newbridge and/or Naas, Co Kildare, for 11 days in December 2022 without professional indemnity insurance.

However, he disputed the Medical Council’s claims that his actions amounted to professional misconduct.

Ms Culliton said the findings of the fitness-to-practise committee were based on Dr Elkhabir’s own admissions and other evidence, including an email dated March 16th, 2023 which indicated the GP had been trying to source private medical indemnity cover for himself since February 2022 without success.

She observed that the e-mail was proof of Dr Elkhabir’s awareness of the need to have insurance cover in place to practise medicine.

Ms Culliton pointed out that the e-mail contradicted the GP’s own evidence that he had assumed that practices where he obtained locum employment would have had insurance that covered him to work for them.

She noted that professional indemnity cover was a mandatory requirement for the protection of the public to ensure compensation was available for any patient harmed or injured as a result of negligence by a doctor.

Ms Culliton said professional misconduct is conduct which is “outrageous, disgraceful or immoral in character” and which could lead to a decline of the standing of the profession and the loss of public confidence in doctors.

She said the condition imposed by the High Court, which required him to notify any employer of the fact that there were conditions attached to his registration, was straightforward.

The fitness-to-practise committee’s recommendation on the appropriate sanction to be imposed on Dr Elkhabir was not disclosed as it had to be determined by the Medical Council.

The obligation on Dr Elkhabir to inform employers of conditions attached to his registration followed an order of the High Court made on November 27th, 2013.

It arose after Dr Elkhabir had been found guilty of professional misconduct by a separate Medical Council fitness-to-practise inquiry in 2012 for making inappropriate comments to a patient and failing to attend to another patient within an adequate time frame.

The finding was subsequently set aside on agreement between the parties after Dr Elkhabir sought to appeal the decision.

Instead, he agreed to be censured and have conditions attached to his registration.

Dr Elkhabir had also been sanctioned by the Medical Council in 2008 over an incident at St Columcille’s Hospital, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, in which he told a patient with epilepsy that the condition could be caused by sexual activity and could be seen as “a sign of the devil in you.”

Counsel for the Medical Council, Eoghan O’Sullivan BL, also outlined at the latest inquiry how Dr Elkhabir had also faced another disciplinary process in 2014 regarding inappropriate comments to a patient.

The GP’s name went off the regulatory body’s register in 2016 but was restored in 2021, subject to the conditions of the High Court order from 2013.