A treatment identified by the HSE as beneficial against covid was not made available to nursing home patients, an Irish Medical Council inquiry heard yesterday. The Fitness to Practise hearing into GP Dr Marcus de Brun, who resigned from the medical council in April 2020, is expected to run for four days.
The first witness to answer questions was former IMC President, Dr Rita Doyle. The Bray based GP was President of the IMC when Dr Marcus de Brun tendered his resignation, in April 2020, over the failure of policy in the care of nursing home patients.
Representing himself, Dr de Brun took the opportunity to ask Dr Rita Doyle about an email circulated from the HSE to hospital group CEO’s on March 24 2020, regarding the use of hydroxychloroquin.
Dr de Brun cited a paragaph of the email that states ‘hydroxychloroquin has been identified as having antiviral activity against Sars-Cov-2.’
“Would you accept that this guidance from the HSE states hydroxychloroquin has been identified as having some as having some benefit against covid?” Dr de Brun asked the former IMC President.
“Yes,” Dr Rita Doyle replied.
Dr de Brun referred to an email request circulated by the HSE to pharmacies, asking that the medication not be dispensed to ‘people in the community’, which included nursing home patients.
“I am asking you Dr Doyle, does that to you mean a denial of therapeutics to nursing home patients?” Dr de Brun said.
Dr Doyle replied that it was her understanding the measure applied ‘to everybody.’
Dr de Brun asked again if this amounted to the withholding of medication that had been identified by the HSE as beneficial in the treatment of covid.
“I think this is just a general advice, not everybody can have what they want when they want it, when you have a limited supply….” Dr Doyle replied.
Reading from official HSE documentation compiled by Dr de Brun and circulated to the hearing committee, Dr de Brun repeated the directive that stated the medication was only to be prescribed to hospital patients.
“Hydroxychloroquin has been identified as having anti viral activity in Sars Cov 2. Yet it should only be prescribed for hospital inpatients,” Dr de Brun said.
“Yes, I see that,” Dr Doyle replied.
“Then how do you correlate that with ‘patients were not denied treatment’?” Dr de Brun asked.
“That was the policy of the time,” Dr Doyle said.
“It was being denied from everybody except hospital patients at that time,” Dr de Brun said.
“I am not saying that that is the correct policy, it is as it was,” Dr Doyle said.
“Everyone was deprived except in hospital patients,” she said.
The Fitness to Practise hearing, which was postponed from its original date of June 10th, heard details of ten allegations against Dr de Brun, who ran a busy surgery catering to more than 7,000 patients and fifty nursing home residents in Rush, Co Dublin up until 2021.
He was appointed to the Irish Medical Council in 2018 by then minister for health Simon Harris but resigned in April 2020 over the treatment of nursing home patients, the lack of available testing equipment for them and the lack of testing of patients transferred to the facility.
Dr de Brun is facing ten allegations of profressional misconduct over a series of tweets questioning of NPHET covid policy, face masks, lockdowns and vaccine safety.
Barrister Neasa Bird, representing the Irish Medical Council, spent much of yesterday morning reading tweets posted on X into the record where the committee must then decide if, through social media and in his obligations as a medical doctor, he is guilty of failing to promote Covid policy.
The doctor defended his social media activity citing his ‘great upset and anger’ and the situation he found himself in and no other means to raise the alarm over what he felt were serious policy failings in the treatment of nursing home residents.
“The reason for some of the anger and upset evidenced in my tweets is my patients died. They died as a consequence of government guidelines,” he said.
“Before I began to post on Twitter, I tried my best to inform the medical council and to inform the authorities but I was ignored.”
“I would like the council to be cognisant of the circumstances and the deaths I was compelled to witness because of government guidelines and inaction by the medical council,” he said.
In addition to posts on his X account, which had 40,000 followers in 2021, the allegations against Dr de Brun include his attendance at an anti-lockdown rally on August 22 2020 at Custom House Quay in Dublin. He gave a speech at that rally, a recording of which was played to the inquiry yesterday.
In his speech, Dr de Brun spoke the ‘anger and social division foisted upon us by government’ and said he was angry about what was happening to the country. He said he had resigned from the IMC because of what happened in Irish nursing homes.
“These people were transferred into the nursing homes without being tested. Then they were told, you can’t be tested becase tests have been withdrawn to this sector.”
He said that children were not dying from covid, noting that it is dangerous to the elderly and those with underlying conditions.
“Children do not die from Covid 19, we all know, the doctors know, covid is dangerous to elderly people and people with underlying conditions.”
Dr de Brun spoke about the hypocricy of ‘Golfgate’ – where judges and politicians gathered for a social dinner during lockdowns – and said masks were just a distraction, as people were being denied the decency of an independent public inquiry.
At the end of the recording, supporters in the public gallery offered extended applause.
The allegations against Dr de Brun in relation to his attendance at the rally, include that he appeared not to observe social distancing and may not have used hand sanitiser when shaking hands with people afterwards.
The inquiry continues today at King’s Inns, Henrietta Street, Dublin.