A woman who suffered forty years of pain and discomfort after enduring an unnecessary operation following the birth of her son has been awarded 450,000 Euros compensation for a symphysiotomy procedure.
The victim from Castlebellingham in County Louth is now sixty years of age. In 1969 – at the age of eighteen – doctors at the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda delivered her son by Caesarean Section and then performed a symphysiotomy without the victim´s knowledge or consent. A symphysiotomy is a procedure whereby the cartilage between the left and right pubic bones is cut to widen the pelvis and until 2002 – when the victim recognised the symptoms she had suffered all her adult life listening to radio program – the victim was unaware that she had undergone the operation.
After seeking legal advice, the victim made a claim for compensation for a symphysiotomy procedure in 2004 against the Medical Missionaries of Mary – who ran the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in 1969 – claiming that the procedure had caused her to suffer “ongoing pain and later suffered continuous back pain, incontinence and depression” and had been the reason for her failure to bond with her first child or increase the size of her family.
Olivia´s symphysiotomy procedure compensation claim was dismissed by the High Court in 2006 on the grounds that “there would have to be expert evidence available on both sides to debate the appropriateness of the procedure carried out” and, as the obstetrician who had performed the operation – Dr Gerard Connolly – had since died, no medical explanation could be provided. However, in 2006, after revising her claim for symphysiotomy procedure compensation, the Supreme Court gave the victim leave to re-submit her claim.
On this occasion, the victim claimed that there was no justification in any circumstances for a symphysiotomy procedure to be performed subsequent to delivering a child by Caesarean Section and, as representatives of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital could not provide a medical explanation why the operation was carried out, Mr Justice Sean Ryan found in favour of the victim and awarded her compensation for a symphysiotomy procedure amounting to 450,000 Euros.