Patient vows to stand by under-fire doctor

Christine Lynch, 55, described the public “naming and shaming” of Dr Michael Watt as a “witch hunt”, adding that all doctors make mistakes.

The multiple sclerosis (MS) patient said: “I have received nothing but the best of care from him since 2004. I’m shocked by what is happening to this outstanding neurologist. It looks like a witch hunt. My father was a doctor. Doctors make mistakes just like people in all walks of life.

“I don’t consider myself a former patient of Dr Watt. I am still his patient and will stand by him and continue to be his patient when he returns.”

A website which allows patients to anonymously review healthcare professionals was updated over the past few days with dozens of positive messages about the “considerate” and “attentive” care they had received from Dr Watt.

Others were more critical of Dr Watt. Melissa McCullough – a non-executive director for the Health and Social Care Board NI – claimed Dr Watt incorrectly diagnosed her with MS instead of neurological Lyme disease in 2010.

Ms McCullough is reported to have told the Belfast Telegraph: “It was so frustrating, I felt he wasn’t listening to me when there was something terribly wrong. He diagnosed me with MS, but I had a late stage of neurological Lyme disease, which can be life-threatening at that late stage.”

She said she lodged a formal complaint with the Belfast Health Trust in 2011, five years before the trust said it had received concerns about Dr Watt.

Department of Health Permanent Secretary Richard Pengelly said yesterday his department’s first priority is to promptly review all of Dr Watt’s patients “to ensure that their diagnosis is appropriate and that they are receiving the right type of treatment and care”.

He said a wider review will be undertaken of outpatient services in the Belfast Trust with a particular focus on neurology services. The review will then be extended to cover all five HSC trusts in NI.

Asked why it had chosen to name Dr Watt on Tuesday while the review is ongoing, a Belfast Trust spokesperson said: “The trust considered that it was necessary to include Dr Watt’s name in its communications with patients, with general practitioners and in the media with the general public. The trust only did so when it had established that there was a confirmed basis for the concerns.

“It did so in order to ensure that other patients were not unnecessarily worried by the concerns which had arisen in relation to one consultant, and in a context where there already was speculation regarding Dr Watt’s name.”