A group representing women who survived symphysiotomy has welcomed the first ever court award in such a case.
Survivors of Symphysiotomy said today’s High Court award to Louth woman Olivia Kearney (60), who had the operation without her knowledge or consent during childbirth in Drogheda in 1969, sent “a very strong signal”.
Chairperson of the group, Marie O’Connor said symphysiotomy had been “a barbarous procedure”.
The operation involved sawing through a woman’s pelvis to separate the bone in order to accommodate a baby’s head. It generally left women disabled, in pain, incontinent, their sexual lives damaged, their babies occasionally injured, sometimes fatally.
“To carry it out in the aftermath of Caesarean section, ostensibly to deliver a baby already born, was perverse,” Ms O’Connor said.
“As Mr Justice Sean Ryan indicated, this was an unnecessary operation. All symphysiotomies performed on a scheduled basis were unnecessary.
“They were done in preference to Caesarean section by obstetricians who preferred to break a woman's pelvis instead. Such operations, which were fuelled by doctors' personal belief systems, were grossly negligent.”
Ms O’Connor noted Ms Kearney had only discovered the fact that she had had a symphysiotomy by accident, through the media, some 30 years after her surgery.
“That a patient could have major surgery without her knowledge or consent, and that she could be discharged from hospital without knowing her pelvis had been severed, beggars belief. But in the vast majority of cases, this is exactly what happened.”
The organisation sought to have the statute of limitations on taking legal action in such cases “set aside” for one year as a number of its members risk being statute-barred to taking action.
“Justice demands that the statute be varied to allow them to take their chances in court, as was done for other victims of institutional abuse,” Ms O’Connor said.
She said that even after they were exposed in the media, some women could not bring themselves to believe that they had been subjected to wrongful surgery.
Up to 1,500 women are believed to have suffered the procedure in Irish labour wards and operating theatres.