Xtra Diary: No way to treat a doctor - Suspension of Kim Holt from Great Ormond Street Hospital
Published: 16 April 2010
No way to treat a doctor
SOMEONE took a decision at the famous Great Ormond Street Hospital in Bloomsbury to suspend a senior pediatrician, Dr Kim Holt, from her post three years ago.
We know why the good doctor was suspended on full pay. But who ticked off her name on the suspension list?
You would think it would be easy to find out. After all, the hospital is a public institution, funded by taxpayers and, therefore, whoever took that fateful decision is on the public payroll.
Diary asked the hospital this week simply to tell us who took the decision. But we may as well have been asking the hospital’s officials to jump in the Thames for all the notice they took.
The hospital “is not in a position to discuss the case publicly,” we were told.
The mystery of Dr Holt’s disappearance from public view would intrigue any private eye.
These are the facts: Dr Holt, a specialist of 25 years’ experience, started working in Haringey in a children’s department run by GOSH in 2004.
Two years later she started writing to her superiors complaining about the loss of staff and the risk of a possible “disaster” at the child protection service in Haringey if more doctors were not attached to the department.
This was a matter of “public interest” and should be “investigated”, argued Dr Holt.
As readers will know, such a “disaster” occurred when a locum pediatrician was called in to see Peter Connelly (Baby P) and made a mess of her examination. Two days after the examination Peter died.
Was Dr Kim Holt patted on the back for her whistle-blowing?
No. Someone, or a committee, at GOSH felt offended by Dr Holt’s interference and suspended her.
At first, Dr Holt, who lives in Muswell Hill, was suspended on full pay; later, she was seconded to another post at the hospital.
I suppose GOSH form-fillers felt that they couldn’t keep on paying Dr Holt to stay at home for ever, so they slipped her into a post at the hospital just to keep her on the books, as it were.
Assuming Dr Holt’s annual salary was about £80,000, she must have cost the hospital nearly £200,000 before they gave her some work to do.
A lot of people are mad about the case.
Even NHS London, the government-appointed body that runs the health service in London, weren’t happy.
In December, they rapped GOSH over the knuckles, and, effectively, said Dr Holt should be reinstated. But GOSH, four months later, are still undecided about the doctor’s future.
An online petition supporting Dr Holt has been signed by 2,000 people.
Diary would like to be able to tell you what Dr Holt thinks of the awful way she has been treated but she has had to accept a gagging order as negotiations proceed on her reinstatement.
Frank Dobson, who is campaigning for a return to the Commons as MP for Holborn and St Pancras, introduced measures to protect whistle-blowers when he was health secretary in 1997.
He must be angry, too, that all his good work is being ignored by GOSH.
The hospital is not any kind of run-of-the-mill institution. It is a trust, which means it has special powers compared with ordinary hospitals.
Its powers are so special it seems to be a law unto itself.
Diary can’t tell readers who suspended our gallant whistle-blower but are pretty sure the deed was done by managers, highly-paid civil servants, and that none of the doctors at GOSH played any part in it.
Presumably, the hospital’s chief executive Dr Jane Collins would be aware of the case but Diary cannot say for certain because GOSH has pulled the curtains down.
Are we being naïve if we believe that doctors, nurses, porters and other lower managerial staff should be running hospitals and not managers in executive positions?