Practice must pay €10k to patient removed from medical card list after complaint
The WRC ruled that the Saffron & Blue Medical Clinic in Clarecastle, Co Clare had breached the Equal Status Act by victimising the patient, Sarah Mangan.
The clinic denied it had engaged in victimisation of Ms Mangan when it sent her a letter on February 13, 2023 in which it stated that her needs would be better served by another GP given the breakdown of trust in the doctor/patient relationship.
Ms Mangan, who had been a patient of the practice for over 30 years, submitted a complaint against the practice to the WRC in December 2022.
However, the WRC also made a separate ruling that the medical practice had not discriminated against her on grounds of disability over her complaints that she had been refused medical services over her inability to wear a face mask due to various medical conditions.
Ms Mangan claimed the medical centre failed to provide her with reasonable accommodation considering her disabilities and also that she was harassed on several occasions because she could not wear a face mask due to suffering from anxiety, asthma, dermographism (a skin condition) and autism.
The Saffron & Blue Medical Clinic disputed all the complaints and denied that it had discriminated against the patient.
It also claimed she had not provided any credible evidence to support her claims that various medical conditions prevented her from wearing a mask and it did not accept she had a valid diagnosis of autism.
A solicitor for the clinic had sought at the outset of a three-day hearing before the WRC to have her complaints dismissed on the grounds that they were frivolous and vexatious.
Ms Mangan gave evidence of various incidents when she attended the clinic for medical appointments without wearing a face mask.
She claimed she was refused permission to wait in an internal waiting area and had to wait in her car, while on other occasions she claimed she was harassed by one of the GPs and a nurse for not wearing a mask. The Workplace Relations Commission and Labour Court offices in Dublin (Image: Philip Fitzpatrick/Collins)
She told the WRC that the clinic's practice on mask wearing was not consistent as there were other times when she was seen by a GP when she was not wearing a mask.
After being removed from the clinic's medical card panel, Ms Mangan said she was refused as a patient by five other GP practices on the basis they were not accepting medical card holders.
She was subsequently assigned a new doctor under the HSE Change of Doctor procedure for medical card holders.
Asked about the impact of being removed as a patient, Ms Mangan replied: "It is awful. I don't trust doctors anymore."
The clinic's director, Dr Colum Gavin and two other doctors, Marie Quigney and Maeve Cahill, told the WRC hearing that they did not accept that the patient's various health conditions prevented her from wearing a mask.
WRC adjudication officer, Moya de Paor, ruled that Ms Mangan had not been refused medical services within the terms of the legislation and did not suffer any discriminatory treatment over the failure to provide reasonable accommodation.
However, Ms de Paor said the timeline of events supported the patient's claim that the clinic reacted to her complaint to the WRC by deciding to remove her from its medical card panel.
She noted Dr Gavin had claimed that Ms Mangan had been removed from its medical card list because she had lost trust in the practice and not because she had issued legal proceedings against them.
However, Ms de Paor remarked: "I do not accept his evidence as convincing or credible."
She said there was a direct link between the complaint to the WRC and the decision to remove her as a patient from its medical card panel.
Ms de Paor said she appreciated that the doctor/patient relationship was "fraught" during the Covid-19 pandemic and that some of the clinic's staff found it challenging.
Nevertheless, she did not consider the manner in which the medical team approached the issue was reasonable as Ms Mangan was given no notification or warning about her removal and was not advised that she remained a patient of the practice until assigned another GP.
In setting compensation, Ms de Paor said the breach was at "the more serious end of the scale" given Ms Mangan was a patient of the practice for over 30 years with a complex medical history.
She said Ms Mangan was also in a more vulnerable position with less freedom to choose a GP as a medical card holder.
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