The General Medical Council has cleared an experienced consultant neurologist who was investigated for three years for misconduct after giving a “pro-life” medical opinion in an end-of-life court case.
The Revd Dr Patrick Pullicino, 74, who after retirement was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Southwark, faced an investigation by the regulator which could have seen him barred from the profession.
In a career spanning 50 years, he had never faced a fitness to practise investigation until he was targeted by an assisted-suicide campaigner, Celia Kitzinger.
Fr Pullicino, who was supported throughout the case by the Christian Legal Centre, was among the few doctors who first raised the alarm in 2012 over abuses carried out under the Liverpool Care Pathway, leading to the abolition of the end-of-life protocol two years later.
The investigation by the GMC focused on Fr Pullicino’s role in the case of “RS”, a middle-aged Polish man who had suffered brain damage after a heart attack in December 2020.
The clinical team at a Plymouth Hospital had predicted that RS had no prospects of recovering beyond spending the rest of his life in a “minimally conscious state” and the Court of Protection authorised the removal of nutrition and fluids on the grounds that it was not in the patient’s “best interests” to be kept alive.
RS’s mother and two sisters sought to instruct Prof Pullicino as their medical expert, but the High Court Judge, Mr Justice Cohen, strongly criticised his opinion that further observations and tests were necessary for a confident prognosis.
The Court likewise rejected an opinion of a Polish neurosurgeon, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who agreed with him and RS died from dehydration after nutrition and fluids were withdrawn in January 2021.
Ms Kitzinger, who had been following the case and court proceedings, accused Prof Pullicino of bias for “trying to save a patient’s life” and speculated that he “may have deliberately misdiagnosed the patient in the hope of saving his life” after he had given urgent assistance on Christmas Day, during lockdown, to a family facing tragedy.
In a written complaint to the GMC, Kitzinger accused Dr Pullicino of bias because he was a Catholic and had expressed “pro-life values” in the courtroom.
In May 2021 the GMC notified Dr Pullicino that it had commenced an investigation into his fitness to practise based solely on Ms Kitzinger’s complaint.
After having his regular revalidation by the GMC put on hold during the investigation, the GMC has now, however, concluded the case stating: “Dr Pullicino is an experienced Consultant Neurologist, with specialist registration and a licence to practise, and we have no evidence to suggest that he lacks competence to assess a patient’s level of consciousness.”
It said: “We do not have evidence to support an allegation that [his medical opinion] was inaccurate.
“We conclude that there is no realistic prospect of proving these allegations and they are concluded with no action.”
In regards to Dr Pullicino’s beliefs they ruled: “No evidence was adduced to support the allegation that Dr Pullicino’s religious faith or personal beliefs affected his opinion on Patient RS.”
Fr Pullicino said: “I am relieved and pleased that the GMC has refused to take any further action against me.
“In an emergency situation, I was ambushed in the courtroom and then targeted by a militant ‘right to die’ campaigner with an agenda to attack, discredit and caricature my medical opinion.
“From the beginning it was a clear discriminatory attack on the medical opinion I gave because I am a Catholic priest and believe medical professionals should do everything possible to save another human’s life.
“The GMC should never have allowed an investigation to proceed against me, which was so clearly targeted against and based on my religious beliefs. I am concerned that it has taken so long for me to be vindicated and cleared.”
Ms Kitzinger, a professor of gender and sexuality at the University of York, describes herself as “a scholar-activist with a background in academic psychology” and is known for a legal challenge against the UK law’s failure to recognise her Canadian-registered same-sex marriage.
More recently, as a co-director of Open Justice Court of Protection Project, she commented extensively on end-of-life cases, and advocated further strengthening patients’ and families’ right to refuse life-sustaining treatment.
In her complaint, she drew the GMC’s attention to Dr Pullicino’s 2019 public lecture, where he suggested that “discontinuation of food and water is a form of euthanasia” and suggested that “Dr Pullicino allowed himself to be used as a tool of a religious campaigning group”.
She concluded that the doctor “found himself colluding with ‘pro-life’ activists to produce an outcome-driven re-diagnosis of a patient in an attempt to reverse the decision of the court to withdraw treatment”.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The irony should not escape us that this is a doctor under investigation for actually trying to save a life.
“In a world where truth is becoming stranger than fiction, we are now seeing doctors who work to save lives becoming the ones investigated by the GMC. This tells us something about the culture of the GMC.
“We are delighted that Dr Pullicino has been cleared, but it is deeply disturbing that this case got this far.
“The case highlights the growing pressure on medical professionals not to break ranks with their colleagues who had taken a controversial decision to end a patient’s life. In sensitive end-of-life cases, dissenting medical experts risk severe criticism by courts and activists, leading to protracted and stressful investigations by professional regulators.
“The investigation saw a distinguished Professor of Neurosciences, with an unblemished record, being dragged through the mud because a Professor of Gender and Sexuality took umbrage that his medical opinion was ‘pro-life’.
“This is not the first time the GMC has allowed a case to proceed against a Christian medical professional because of a lone secular driven complaint laced in religious discrimination.
“This was a targeted attack by Kitzinger which the GMC allowed to proceed when the complaint should have been thrown out at the first hurdle.
“Instead, a respected professional has had the stress and cloud of an investigation hanging over him for three years.
“We need more doctors and experts who are prepared to be fearless in defending the patient’s right to life.”
(Photo by Simon Caldwell)
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