Calls for greater accountability in the medical profession generally, and for an examination of standards and procedures, were made yesterday following the report that a consultant faced an inquiry after performing 21 caesarean hysterectomies.
Interest groups yesterday demanded closer monitoring through out the medical profession, and greater freedom of information.
Mr Stephen McMahon of the Patients' Association said: "What we are looking for, crying out for, is a full audit of the health service and a full risk assessment."
It was in the interests of both the professionals and the patients that procedures were adhered to, he said. Many of the letters they received from patients were about very poor communication.
"We wouldn't be aware of investigations going on. We feel that there is a need for a serious incident investigation committee," Mr McMahon stated.
The purpose of such a committee, made up of representatives of various interests, would be to find out what the underlying weaknesses in the health services were, and to look at standards and procedures.
People needed to know what was going on and to feel confident that the likelihood of things going wrong was minimised.
He added that the Patients' Association would offer support to the women who were going to be informed about what had happened.
Ms Peggy Maguire, of the European Institute of Women's Health in Dublin, said that the whole issue of external objective controls had been raised. The Medical Council was made up of practitioners.
Information was vital. If a doctor was performing more caesarean hysterectomies than usual, then why was it not spotted earlier, she asked.
Ms Maguire said that somebody should be commissioned to look at external controls, that was, more control involving people who were outside the medical profession.
Ms Paula Gahan-Mullen of the Irish Childbirth Trust said that hospitals, and particularly maternity hospitals, had become a very closed shop. She said there were no figures on maternity trends and she considered this was because of the threat of litigation.
"There is no monitoring to our knowledge," she said. Obstetricians and gynaecologists were accountable only to their own committee.
Ms Berna O'Hanrahan of the Association for Improved Maternity Services, which is being incorporated into the Childbirth Trust, said that in her experience only the three large maternity hospitals issued annual reports. Most of the smaller units did not have to do so.
"It should be a condition of funding that a maternity hospital or unit makes an annual report giving facts and figures. If that had happened in this case, it would have immediately been questioned. There has to be some sort of monitoring," she said.