The medical profession's disciplinary body, the Medical Council Fitness to Practise committee is understood to have upheld allegations of professional misconduct against a consultant obstetrician who allegedly removed the wombs of a number of women without their consent or knowledge.

The Medical Council, which polices the behaviour of doctors, has been investigating complaints against Dr Michael Neary, a former consultant at Our Lady ofLourdes hospital in Drogheda for several years According to sources, the council's Fitness to Practise committee, which has been carrying out an investigation in private, has now upheld a number of the complaints.

The move, when publicly announced this Tuesday, is likely to lead to calls on health minister Micheál Martin to establish a public inquiry into allegations that unnecessary caesarean hysterectomies were carried out at the hospital.

The minister, who has met with some of the women at the centre of the claims, has maintained to date that an inquiry could not be established until after the fitness to practise inquiry was concluded.

Sources said that the committee is also understood to have upheld complaints of rudeness against the consultant.

The committee will make its findings known to the full Medical Council at a special meeting this Tuesday.

The full council can accept or reject the findings of the committee. If it accepts findings of professional misconduct, the council then has to decide on what sanction, if any, to impose.

The controversy at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda first came to light in 1998 after two midwives reported concerns to the North Eastern Health Board.

An independent review was ordered by the health board and in 1999 it found that Neary had a clinically unacceptable level of caesarean hysterectomies.

Neary was placed on leave by the health board. He later retired from the hospital.

The Medical Council received almost 40 complaints from patients against Neary. In up to five cases, it is understood that the committee found that Neary had no case to answer.

A number of women have also initiated legal action against Neary. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal taken by Neary against an award made by the High Court to a patient whose womb was removed by caesarean hysterectomy after the birth of her child.

Caesarean hysterectomy is a rare procedure involving the removal of the womb or ovaries to stop bleeding.

Last November, the High Court ruled in a case taken by Alison Gough from Ardee in Co Louth that Neary had been negligent and it awarded the plaintiff over 250,000 in damages. The court found that had Neary carried out certain procedures at the time that the bleeding could have been stopped and that the caesarean hysterectomy would not have been necessary.

The Supreme Court in early July rejected the appeal brought by Neary but reduced the damages by 50,000.