News Ireland update Wednesday as told by Donie

Galway Hospital Doctor in misconduct inquiry accused of sending texts that upset female staff

     

FEMALE COLLEAGUES of a doctor facing seven allegations of professional misconduct did not want to work “in isolation with him”, a Medical Council fitness-to-practise hearing was told yesterday.

Dr Matthew Goodyear told the hearing that it became “common knowledge” within one or two weeks of the employment of a junior doctor Dr Onada Olajide Onada (40) at University Hospital Galway that he was sending inappropriate texts and emails to female members of the team.

“It was causing a lot of distress,” he said.

Among the allegations against Dr Onada are that he engaged in harassing, inappropriate or intimidating verbal, email or SMS communications with at least four female colleagues while working at the hospital as a senior house officer from August 2010 to January 2011.

It is also alleged that he failed to respond to his pager on at least five occasions, failed to inform the hospital in time that he would not be attending for duty and failed to take blood specimens from patients in a timely manner.

Dr Onada was dismissed from the hospital after a series of disciplinary meetings.

Dr Goodyear, a specialist haematology registrar at the Mater hospital in Dublin, who had worked in Galway in 2010, said he recalled receiving a text message from Dr Onada about one of the doctors at the centre of the allegations, Dr M. It had said she needed to see a psychiatrist.

He said he thought such a text “out of the blue” was “quite bizarre” and he laughed and forwarded it to Dr M.

He told the inquiry Dr Onada was “satisfactory enough from a clinical point of view” but it was “very uncomfortable working with a doctor who treats female staff in such a poor manner.

“People did not want to work in isolation with Dr Onada,” he said.

Dr Goodyear sent an email to the medical manpower manager at the hospital complaining about Dr Onada and calling him a “problematic senior house officer”.

He raised concerns about the text messages Dr Onada had sent as well as about the difficulty of contacting him on his bleep and said that he had not followed hospital processes in relation to taking annual leave.

Under cross-examination from Dr Onada, who was not legally represented, Dr Goodyear was asked if he thought Dr M was “emotional” or “tearful” or needed a psychiatrist.

Dr Goodyear said Dr M was one of the best colleagues he had ever worked with.

“Your contact towards her did cause her to be upset,” he said.

Dr Onada asked Dr Goodyear to explain how he had been inappropriate towards female colleagues given that he had not accepted any invitations to coffee, to drinks and had not invited anyone back to his home or given them gifts.

He also asked if he thought Dr M had behaved appropriately by asking him if he would like to go to the pub on the first day he was at work.

Dr Goodyear said Dr M had also invited all of her other colleagues and she was just being friendly.

Dr Gregory Leonard, consultant oncologist at the hospital, who was Dr Onada’s supervisor for three months, told the inquiry he had been sent an email by Dr Aishling Nee, another of the women at the centre of the allegations.

It outlined her concerns at text messages and emails she received from Dr Onada.

Asked by JP McDowell, solicitor for the Medical Council, what he thought of the email, he said he had never come across an incident like it before.

“It was very unusual and disappointing for Dr Nee to be exposed to this . . . I hoped it would have a quick resolution,” he said.

A Doctor's son from Portugal is jailed for 2 &1/2 years for organising prostitution in Sligo

   

A DOCTOR'S son from Portugal was jailed yesterday in Sligo for running four brothels, and ordered to leave Ireland within 24 hours of completing his sentence.

The 43-year-old man who pleaded guilty to charges of organising prostitution in Sligo has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail. The case was heard at Sligo Courthouse

However, Judge Tony Hunt suspended half of the sentence on condition that Luis Delgado leaves Ireland immediately after his sentence is served and does not return for ten years.

Delgado pleaded guilty to the charge of organising prostitution at four different addresses in Sligo town and county between December 2005 and April 2008.

Sligo Circuit Court was told that there was no violence or coercion involved and that the business was not very profitable, although some weeks were busier than others.

Delgado was born in Angola but grew up in Portugal and moved to Ireland in 2002.

He had previously served time in jail in Holland on charges relating to heroin and cocaine and the possession of firearms and ammunition.

I’ll sue, says Donegal FG Councillor over his Wife & Hitler photo

  an apology  

THE Fine Gael councillor who took pictures of his new wife giving a Nazi salute beside a waxwork dummy of Adolf Hitler has threatened to sue over their publication.

Cllr Barry O’Neill says he is taking “immediate legal action” relating to the reproduction of a picture of his wife Lorraine.

In a statement to Highland Radio in Donegal, Cllr O’Neill, an RTE Producer, said he was taking the action regarding how he and his wife had been portrayed.

In addition he was taking the action regarding the way the photograph had been reproduced, he said.

The picture is of Mrs O’Neill in a waxwork museum while on honeymoon — the picture has since been removed from a social networking page.

Yesterday a Jewish community leader who organises the annual Holocaust Memorial Day at the Mansion House called for an apology after Mr O’Neill told the Herald the pictures were ‘a bit of fun’.

Cllr O’Neill is from Ballyshannon in Co Donegal, and is a leading member of the party in the North West, and sits on the county council. He also works on RTE Radio One’s Sunday Sport.

He married wife Lorraine 12 days ago and is on honeymoon with her in Europe. But there was anger when Cllr O’Neill posted pictures on his Facebook page of his wife standing beside a waxwork dummy of Adolf Hitler at a museum in Rome and giving a Nazi salute.

Mrs O’Neill can also be seen making a ‘rabbit’ gesture behind the Hitler dummy’s head.

Asked about the pictures by the Herald on Sunday, Cllr O’Neill said: “The pictures are private. It was only a bit of fun.”

The offending picture was removed from his Facebook page an hour later. All his other honeymoon pictures were also taken down from the page which was open to the public.

Yanky Fachlar, spokesman for the Jewish Representative Council in Ireland and organiser of the annual Holocaust Memorial Day at Dublin’s Mansion House, said the picture was “deeply offensive”.

He called on Fine Gael to raise the matter with the councillor. “This sort of thing is highly insensitive and shows an incredible ignorance of Hitler and the Nazis,” he said.

“That salute and what it stands for led to the deaths of millions of people including some of my relatives.

“It beggars belief that there are some ignorant people like this who think it’s fun, but especially someone who was elected as a councillor and his wife.”

Mr Fachlar, whose friends helped to save hundreds of Jews during the war in and around Rome, said he was “astonished” that the Rome waxwork museum had such an exhibition.

“This is something to raise with the Jewish community there,” he said.

Online ‘friends’ of the councillor expressed shock at the images. One of them said: “I was shocked to see the wife of an elected councillor posting pictures of herself giving the Nazi salute.

“To simply adopt this gesture is illegal in Germany and Austria and I am personally offended beyond words as I lost ancestors to the Hitler regime.”

Festival: Cllr O’Neill married his fiancee and schoolteacher Lorraine on December 30. More than 500 guests attended a reception at the Abbey Hotel in Donegal Town.

The couple then flew off for a tour of Europe, spending several days in Rome.

Mrs O’Neill had posted a note on the same Facebook page thanking “our family and friends for making our wedding day a most memorable and special day. It was definitely the BEST day of both our lives.”

Her husband is well-known in music circles throughout Ireland as the main organiser of the annual Rory Gallagher Music Festival in Ballyshannon in August.

Connacht Gold Sligo co-op cleared to buy Donegal Creameries’ stores 

 

The Competition Authority has cleared the acquisition of Donegal Creameries’ milk and retail stores by Connacht Gold.

The authority said it had taken account of the views of customers of both entities as well as the views of the Irish Farmers Association about the competitive impact of the acquisition on farmers in the northwest.

Connacht Gold confirmed the €21 million deal on October 31st, which will see the Sligo co-op acquire most of Donegal Creameries’ businesses.

Donegal Creameries, which is listed on the Irish Stock Exchange, said the company would focus on its seed potato and niche dairy products division, as well as maintaining its animal feeds business and its property investments.

NUI Galway’s ‘Click & Connect’computer training seeks to close the digital divide

   NUI Galway’s ‘Click & Connect’ computer training seeks to close digital divideAnyone who believes they have been ‘digitally excluded’ now have a chance to brush up on their skills, courtesy of a new computer training initiative from NUI Galway, Limerick Community Connect, DCU and Age Action Ireland.

‘Click & Connect’ will deliver basic computer training for free to 400 people with no prior experience of computers and the internet, between January-June 2012, from the Discipline of Information Technology at NUI Galway. Class sizes will be small and will be carried out in local, informal learning environments.

Tutors will introduce students to computer basics and teach them activities such as surfing the internet, creating and using an email account, how to download photos and how to access Government information online.

Prof Gerry Lyons, Dean of the College of Engineering and Informatics, said there are thousands of people living in Ireland today who have been left behind when it comes to the internet.

“Older people will particularly benefit (from ‘Click & Connect’), as will unemployed people and disadvantaged groups in the Galway region,” Lyons said.

“These people miss out on opportunities most people take for granted.  For example, those not yet online cannot send emails, do internet searches for products or information, or conduct Government transactions online,” he added.

‘Click & Connect’ classes, funded by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, will be two hours in duration and run for three weeks.  More information and registration for the classes can be obtained from co-ordinator Trish O’Connell in the Discipline of Information Technology at 087 057 1967 or clickandconnect@nuigalway.  Classes begin the week of 16 January.