Neary: A Lesson Learned?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | feature Wednesday March 08, 2006 14:43 by Kathy Sinnott

The fogotten victims: symphisiotomy

Dr. Neary

It has been hard for women to listen to the saga of Dr. Neary, his colleagues and the caesarean hysterectomies.

“Congratulations Mrs X, you have a lovely baby boy and, well, no womb.”

“Mrs Y, would you like the good news or the bad news first”.

“Mrs Z now that you have a boy and a girl….”

No sorry, not on.

But it happened to 129 mothers from 1974 to 1998 until someone blew the whistle. Questions have been asked about how it happened. In an attempt to answer, many things are being examined: Dr. Neary’s training, competence, disposition, the structures and culture of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.
But at the end of a great deal of analysis, things seem as unclear as ever.

Maybe we would have a clearer picture if we looked at the bigger picture. To do this we need to remember at least two other practices that went unchecked in the same department of the same hospital in the same time frame,

From 1950 to 1983, 349 women were subjected to symphysiotomy. Symphysiotomy is the breaking (sawing) of the pelvic bone in an obstructed labour. Symphysiotomy was developed as a last resort life saving procedure in Africa. It was used in the extreme situation in which a mother with an obstructed labour travelled from a remote village arriving at to a very distant field clinic near death with the baby firmly trapped in the birth canal to late for a caesarean. Symphysiotomy is a particularly brutal intervention which in the Irish context of maternity hospitals and wards with available emergency surgical facilities 24 hours a day, is completely unnecessary.

The women given symphysiotomy (before, during and after they gave birth) in Our Lady of Lourdes maternity department were left home usually without even a word of explanation. They tried to raise their baby but many of them could not lift even the baby’s weight or walk across the room to get the nappies. Most have never been pain free since their symphysiotomy. The pain has shaped their lives, in some cases ending marriages, distancing children, preventing outside work and interests. Most have in time developed arthritis. Many are in wheelchairs. Because they did not know what happened to them until a few years ago many of these mutilated women were considered hypochondriacs and having a psychiatric condition.

Despite the cruelty, inappropriateness and the obviously wretched condition of the women at their post natal check ups symphysiotomy continued unchecked at in the same department of the same hospital. In this case the consultant who championed symphysiotomy was never stopped and in 1983, the year after his retirement, the last three were carried out by someone he had taught.

Unnecessary hysterectomies and symphysiotomies were not all that mothers, fathers and their babies were covertly subjected to in the same departments (maternity, pathology, etc) of the same hospital. From at least 1980, probably earlier, until 1999, stillborn babies and babies who died while their mothers were still in the maternity ward were stripped of their internal organs without permission or knowledge. Organ retention was secret, systematic and highly organised. Someone did the organ harvesting, someone ordered it, someone benefited. Parents not hospital personnel; stopped it.

We have a hard hitting report about the activities of Dr. Neary and the suffering of his victims. We have been listening to Mary Harney our Minister for Health’s indignation at the plight of the women. But I would advise the women of Patient Focus to get any promises signed sealed and delivered while the situation has media attention and public sympathy. Both the SOS (symphysiotomy) women and Parents for Justice (organ retention) had their time in the spotlight, their urgent meetings and promises from Micheal Martin, then Minister for Health. Where are they now? The SOS women are left with no help and dashed hopes. Parents for Justice have the Madden Report an expensive and elaborate government cover up.

This is a bigger picture but is it the whole picture? What other pieces of the puzzle could hospital records and local women tell us? It is important to find out - not to play a blame game but to understand, to help the victims and to ensure that it never happens again.