A woman who retained a 5.5 cm bone within her body for more than a month after an operation was performed to evacuate a dead foetus has been awarded €100,000 damages in the High Court.
Ms Fiona Griffin (45), Ballynoe, Cobh, Co Cork, had sued Dr Rachel Patton, an obstetrician gynaecologist, at the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork. Ms Griffin had also sued the hospital but the case against the hospital was struck out earlier in the proceedings.
Ms Griffin alleged pain and suffering as a result of the bone being left inside her following an operation carried out by Dr Patton on January 23rd, 1998, to evacuate a 17-week-old dead foetus.
She underwent a further surgical procedure on March 23rd, 1998, to remove the material.
In evidence, Dr Patton said she believed she had completely removed the foetus but she admitted that pieces could be left behind. In a 37-page reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice O'Donovan found Dr Patton had fallen below an acceptable standard of care in not checking sufficiently to establish that the bone material was removed. He awarded €100,000 in damages.
Afterwards, Ms Griffin said she felt vindicated by the judgment and now wished to get on with her life after a very difficult five years. She said medical instruments which had not been available at the time of her operation were now in use at the hospital.
In his decision, Mr Justice O'Donovan said he was satisfied Ms Griffin had given an accurate and truthful account of events following the operation on January 23rd, 1998.
He held Dr Patton was entitled to undertake the surgical procedure involved but did not think it necessary to adjudicate on whether or not a hysterotomy (an incision of the uterus to remove a dead foetus) might reasonably have been performed on Ms Griffin. While criticism was made of the absence of a vacuum suction curette machine in the hospital, the judge ruled no blame attached to the hospital regarding any alleged unsuitability or inadequacy of the instruments used by Dr Patton.
There was no evidence the board of management had received a request from a doctor to provide such equipment.
Even Dr Patton's most ardent critics accepted that to leave some soft tissue behind after the ERPC (evacuation of retained products of conception) procedure was excusable, he said.
However, he believed the visual check by Dr Patton was not sufficient. To that extent, he held she fell below the acceptable standard of care.
Dealing with complaints about the failure to carry out an ultra scan after the procedure, the judge said it seemed to defy logic that it was not incumbent on Dr Patton to carry out an ultra sound scan to ensure the foetus had been fully evacuated.
He was satisfied Dr Patton was every emotional after she completed the ERPC procedure. He believed her emotions clouded her judgment to the extent that, when treating Ms Griffin then, she fell below standards one would expect of a gynaecologist of her training and experience exercising ordinary care. The judge said Ms Griffin was deeply hurt by the events which occurred during the early months of 1998. There was no doubt she was devastated by the loss of her unborn child in January 1998. She craved a larger family and was very upset some 15 or 16 months earlier when she experienced a miscarriage. She had had huge expectations when she became pregnant in September 1997.
Nobody, and in particular Dr Patton, could be blamed for the death of her unborn child in January 1998 and Ms Griffin was not entitled to any compensation for the loss of that child, the judge stressed.
However, Dr Patton's negligent failure to complete the ERPC operation caused Ms Griffin great distress. As a result, Ms Griffin had experienced the vast majority, if not all, of the psychological problems of which she had complained of over the last five years.
The judge awarded €75,000 general damages for suffering over the past five years as a result of the failed surgical procedure. He awarded €25,000 for damages into the future, assuming it would be five years before she was completely free of existing psychological symptoms.