Carmody vows to get medical licence back

Former doctor Paschal Carmody speaks to Carol Byrne about his 12-year battle to vindicate his name, the effect it has had on him and his plans to appeal the Irish Medical Council’s decision that led to him being struck off the medical register
AS the last of the cases against Paschal Carmody, now 65, has been withdrawn by the State, the former GP said he is looking forward to getting back to normal and intends to seek the restoration of his medical licence.
“I’m very glad it’s over. It’s been stressful and expensive to my family, in so far as we had to face what we had to face and confront it. It is now finished today [Wednesday] and we are happy to go back to some form of normality. I’m very relieved,” he said.

Mr Carmody was struck off the medical register in early 2004 but, after securing a Supreme Court judgement, continues to practice biological medicine, which is used in the treatment of muscular problems.

He believes “lives were lost, I have no doubt lives were lost” due to him being struck off by the Fitness to Practice Committee.

“One of the great regrets I have is that I had 150 patients at that time, long-term survivors, five years plus. When I was injuncted from carrying on the treatment, and it wasn’t just photodynamic therapy it was all treatments, due care should have been provided for these patients. It wasn’t,” he said.

“Each person was on a treatment and if that treatment is not available through any other source, there is a duty of care to provide a source, whether outside of the country or otherwise.

“I was the only doctor at that time providing photodynamic therapy, immunotherapy and hyperthermia. They stopped all that,” he claimed.

He claimed it was “appalling” that his use of St John’s Wort and other natural herbal products were used as a reason to take his licence from him.

He said he used these for the treatment of mild to moderate depression, circulation problems and in the treatment of other conditions like tinnitus and chronic problems “where pharmacological medicine had little or nothing to offer”.

“I found that appalling because in every other country in the world these products are freely available over the counter. I believe it is wrong. I feel the whole issue and determination was incorrect, even the procedure adopted by the Medical Council was wrong and by the Fitness to Practice Committee was wrong,” he claimed.

Mr Carmody said he was not in a position to challenge their decision as the criminal cases were still live but now that he has been “vindicated”, he would be looking into appealing their ruling.

Asked if he regretted offering cancer treatment to patients at the East Clinic in Killaloe, he replied, “No”.

He said he believed there is another way to treat cancer and that going forward “the singular approach to medical care is going to change enormously and we are going to have to embrace a much wider approach, especially to chronic illnesses”.

“We did attempt other modalities of treatment that may have influenced the welfare of sick people. It wasn’t for any other purpose other than to enhance their well-being and possibly prolong life. If you achieved anything further beyond that, well that was extra. It was marvellous, sometimes we did. We have patients who have survived and their life today was spontaneous intermission but they are still with us 20 years later. These are the issues that kept us going through these dark times,” he said.

Mr Carmody said he stills believe the future is in a wider approach, “rather than one disease, one treatment”.

“Every patient is different, therefore every approach to illness has to be tailored to that patient specifically. You can’t give the same tablet to the same patient for every illness. It doesn’t work like that,” he said.

Asked what he would say to those families who gave evidence that he allegedly claimed he could cure them, Mr Carmody said the families were all affected by the death of a relative.

“Our job is to heal and there comes a time when you hope you can help and help within the best of your ability. Tragically, that doesn’t always work out but if there is some success along the way and we had enough success to say to these people ‘yes there is a possibility that your child, your husband or brother could improve’.

“We all work to an intelligible level and we approach our work to the highest standards and this was an outrageous charge to promise to cure cancer with photodynamic therapy,” he said.

He added that the application of the DPP to offer no evidence in the last remaining case against him on deception charges would restore his reputation.

“I have been totally vindicated. I have spent over 100 days in court in total. There was no conviction against me. There were 46 charges originally levelled at me. None of the charges were proven. I feel totally vindicated and my work was not in any way wrong. It has been catastrophic on my mental and physical health. There is no point in saying it hasn’t been catastrophic, it has been,” he said.

Mr Carmody said he did not regret going into business with Bill Porter, the person with whom he operated the photodynamic therapy treatment, although he said he had reservations about continuing the treatment.

“At the time I was going to walk away from this treatment because of the time factor and the costs and then when Bill Porter came on board, he said ‘I will do all the light laser administration’. All I had to do was assess the patients, deem them for suitability for treatment – there would be one possibly in 100 that I would believe may benefit from the whole lot – prescribe the photo-synthesiser and let him apply the laser,” he said.

He said he never heard Mr Porter promise a cure but said he was aware that Mr Porter’s late wife, Maggie, believed she was cured.

“His wife, who was my patient, believed she had been cured as a result of the intervention that I gave to her. She lived for six years but unfortunately died long after my time, when I was out of the loop.

“She may have been pushing it more with people. She was a very intelligent woman. She was a counsellor by training. I never heard her use the word ‘cure’ to patients and Bill Porter definitely didn’t. He never set himself out as a doctor. He said ‘I’m an expert in laser treatment’. I have no regrets about what I have done,” he said.

The Clare Champion contacted the Medical Council on Wednesday for comment but at the time of going to print, there was no response.