Neary: A Lesson Learned?
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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.
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Comments (19 of 19)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19In case anyone is tempted to think that Neary is some sort of exception, the truth is that , in many respects, he is not at all. Leaving aside the butchery of what happened, his is fundamentally an attitude that pervades societal attitudes to women in every walk of life.
His actions, albeit extreme, are a manifestation of a still deepseated and widespread contempt for the essentially female. The denigration of the female in this world continues apace. Most of us, women included, still contribute to this situation on one level or another.
Aping and competing with men within a frame of reference that is still almost exclusively defined by men is not equality. We have gained little other than the right to another form of economic serfdom to men. We are still neither valued nor respected for what we really are. Research has shown that in a discussion with men, women will be perceived as having spoken for three times longer than they do and will be resented for it, moreover. As women we know what we have to do and not do in order to maintain approval - we acquiesce, we smile and above all we don't challenge - subtly aware that the mere sound of our voices is often enough to annoy others, particularly where we want to disagree or to assert ourselves on an equal footing.
At discos, there is now a convention among teenage boys and girls that when a boy expresses an interest, he is expecting to spend the evening, not dancing or talking, but kissing and groping you (more if possible) no strings attached. The girls are complaining that there is no friendship, no dating or normal socialising: the boys are having their cake and eating it too. Is this where 'feminism' has brought us? Is this equality? In some circles, the practice of 'bushing' is common. Young women wear short skirts and no pants when they go out for the night. These practices and others like them are a travesty of what adolescents should be learning about one another. What kind of society can this behaviour result in? Are these the parents of tomorrow? God help their children. God help us all.
One pharmaceutical company, in researching new medication for high blood pressure, realised that the menstrual cycles of women were affecting the results. Did they decide to conduct separate trials for men and women? No, they did not. They decided to restrict the trials to men only and when the product was finally approved it was prescribed to both men and women regardless of a dangerous lack of information about how it would affect women. This is common practice.
Why does any man want to be a gynaecologist or obstetrician? Seriously? Why is that profession still dominated by people who will never experience the biological realities of being a woman? Any woman having a baby nowadays will be lucky if she gets through her pregnancy without being patronsied and objectified by the medical profession. 'Push!, that's a good girl'. The entire process is one of submitting to the dictates of a male-defined care regime (and female doctors and medical professionals almost all buy into the chauvinistic mores of the medical profession too - they have to if they want to survie it) which culminates in women routinely lying on their backs in the most submissive and vulnerable situation in order to do what is less painful, less dangerous and infinitely more dignified when done standing up.
When a baby is born, it is now almost certain to be fed by Nestle or some other profit-making corporation at the known expense of the childs own longterm mental and physical health. As women we have the most precious gifts for our babies when they are born but, in a matter of 50 years, they have been designated non-essential. How can we seriously have allowed ourselves to buy into this scandalous suppression of one of our most basic functions as human beings - to damage our own offspring when they are at their most vulnerable and needy? Those who do breastfeed are made to feel ashamed and to hide away . Why are we still mostly embarrassed by the sight of a breastfeeding mother? There can be few things which exemplify the extent to which we have lost our way as a species. But the female breast is the preserve of male sexual fantasy and needs to be reserved for that purpose above all. Our true femininity is more degraded than ever. Neary is a product of his times and not many people can actually feel smug if they choose to compare themselves.
'Why does any man want to be a gynaecologist or obstetrician? Seriously? Why is that profession still dominated by people who will never experience the biological realities of being a woman? Any woman having a baby nowadays will be lucky if she gets through her pregnancy without being patronsied and objectified by the medical profession. 'Push!, that's a good girl'. The entire process is one of submitting to the dictates of a male-defined care regime (and female doctors and medical professionals almost all buy into the chauvinistic mores of the medical profession too - they have to if they want to survie it) which culminates in women routinely lying on their backs in the most submissive and vulnerable situation in order to do what is less painful, less dangerous and infinitely more dignified when done standing up. '
Asa fourth year med student in UCD I followed the Neary case closely and I was shocked how anyone could have carried out these sort of operations for absolutely no reason.I agree unfortunatly with much of what M Cotton has said and just want to comment on her quote above.Unfortunatly the medical proffesion in Ireland is a man's world,even though there is more females qualifying each year.The training to become a gynaecologist or obstetrician or really any sort of surgical job makes it almost impossible for women to climb high up in the medical proffession ladder.Training to become a obstetrician takes 7-9 years.7 years of working day in day out 80 hours a week and also this will include an elective year which is usually in the U.S.Most girls I'm in college with now will have the view of getting married and having a family in their early 30's.Therefore,realistically most of us qualify at the age of 24 and will have to do one intern year which will make us 25.Then we will be 34 by the time we are qualified as an obstetrician and if you have family at this stage you would have to be away from them for a year while you do your elective.Also,there's so many malpractise cases taken out against gynaecologists now that you'll have to spend at least 4 months in the year to work just to pay off your malpractise insurance.Therefore,Can you really see any women doctors realistically wanting to be a gynaecologist with this sort of training.I think I'l stick to my two years training to become a public health doctor where I can have a life and not have to study and work tirelessly till the age of 34.Any gynaecologist I have come across seems to be the same-male,totally incompassinate and unsympathetic to womens emotions.But I just cant see any compassionate women med student wanting to waste their life and sacrifice any chance of having a family before the age of 34 by dedicating their whole life to training to be a gynaecologist.Most people would want to have a life outside of their jobs.If the Neary case teaches us anything,I hope it is to make the training for surgery,and obs+gyn a lot less male orientated and suitable for us girls.
The mantra of "do no harm" seems to have been forgotten in Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital. The cover-up and "misplacement" of files is nothing new if you talk to peeople in the local area. Like other areas of Irish society people, those with authority often go about their business without being accountable or questioned.
in the US medical intervention is the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. Almost 250,000 people die every year in the US due to iatrogenesis. Figures for iatrogenic deaths in Ireland are, conveniently, not collected.
The figures for deaths break down as
195,000 deaths due to hospital error, 106,000 negative effects of drugs, 80,000 infections in hospitals, 20,000 other errors in hospitals and 7,000 medication errors in hospitals.
Whenever there has been a doctor’s strike, deaths rates have nearly always decreased. In Columbia 1976 when doctors went on strike for 52 days, the death rate dropped by 35%. In 1976 in LA, deaths dropped by 18% when doctors went on strike, ironically, to protest against malpractice insurance premiums. The same thing happened in Israel in 1973. The strike lasted a month and according to the Jerusalem Burial Society, the Israeli death rate dropped 50%. The only other time there had been such a decrease in mortality rates was 20 years earlier when there was another strike.
What are you trying to say Gaz B?That there should be no doctors?That we do more harm than good?:o(
nope but ne of the reasons for the high numbers of deaths by medical intervention is the privatisation of health care, especially in the US. The last thing a health system run for profit wants is an outbreak of good health. Privatisation often means that doctors are overworked and the last thing you want is some tired, broken person giving you drugs or operating on you. It also means that “non-profitable” activities such as the cleaning of wards are often neglected leading to an increase in hospital infections. In Irelands case, it's largely down to bureaucracy, poor management and lack of proper investment.
Do u wnat a health service based on making money or looking after people with poor health?
Another worrying development is the over-prescription of drugs. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions developing drugs, money that has to be recouped. In order to sell drugs drug companies have been caught lying about test results and giving kickbacks to both politicians and the medical profession.
Doctors are brought on trips/conferences and are given information/propaganda about certain products. The medical proffession has a certain tendency to become drug pushers themselves with obvious side effects.
In America, one person dies every 3-5 minutes from due to side effects of approved prescribed drugs. This is 3-5 times the numbers who die each year from illegal drugs.
all of this info is from JAMA
A medical profession which wonders why people are increasingly turning to unproven alternative medicine need only to look at themselves.
They are paid less. They work more. They are in struggle. & an average of 100 years electoral franchise in "developed" states changes not one iota of their struggle. If you do nothing else today,
find a woman & say :- " I know you're in struggle- Your struggle is mine too. Solidarity". Sure it could even be your mammy.
sin é.
The Michael Neary case is one of the most shameful episodes in modern Irish history, but let’s keep focused on the issues here and forget about what goes on at discos or about Nestle and leave that to the Millie Tants and Students Unions to rant about. None of the mothers who at the centre of this case give a flying fuck about such issues. It's irrelevant that "men" are involved. Women in the form or nuns, midwives, and other doctors acted just as shamefully...
Instead, listen to the audio reconstructions from the Report of Judge Maureen Harding Clarke into Medical Practices at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital on the Tonight with Vincent Browne RTE Radio 1 show - http://www.rte.ie/radio1/tonightwithvincentbrowne/
This guy Neary was a nasty, savage, brute. A deeply unpleasant, arrogant, individual. Let’s forget the obsequious deference according to him and some of his colleagues with the title “Dr.”. Here is a guy who had a contract in the UK that allowed him to be excused from contraceptive/artificial procedures and yet comes to ireland and in a Catholic-ethos hospital (one could hardly call it Christian) performed dozens of hysterectomies for sterilization purposes.
But it’s within the context of the savage treatment meted out to women in childbirth in this country for years:
* Midwives slapping the faces of women in labour.
* Up to recently women’s pelvises were being broken in catholic-ethos maternity hospitals in Dublin so that they could have more children…
* Don’t start me on the background to Magdalene laundries.
In all, a disgusting, disgraceful episode from a disgusting man, who has his supporters still:
Remember:
* When he was suspended first there were people protesting outside the hospital in his favour
* 3 respected medical experts in the OBYGYN areas from the three maternity hospitals records absolve this guy on grounds of collegiality and “compassion” and conclude that the Drogheda women were “fortunate “to have this Neary guy as their doctor. 128 hysterectomies and Neary gives nine files to these people to review. Yes, the same maternity hospitals who’s Masters were on the blower to Mickey McDowell about their staff being overrun by immigrant women in labour… prompting the racist referendum!
* 44 patient files go missing. How come? Who removed those files? What was the role of the nuns in all this?
* He was said to have said: “I never liked your ovaries anyway” to one women, and I'm here in this hospital since 7 am this morning and if you don't start working (pushing) harder I will walk out of there, if the baby is dead or alive to another woman in labour.
If this torture and cover up happened in the US Administration, the Irish Times would be up in arms…
The big tragedy with this fucked up country of ours is that there is nothing to stop it again. The legal preclusion on class actions and restricted awards on compensation grounds means that these butchers can never to be put out of business by being sued into the ground. And people laugh at the American system….
And again the taxpayer picks up the bill - that's where we are all to blame...
I urge you all to listen to the reconstructions - http://www.rte.ie/radio1/tonightwithvincentbrowne/
There's not much I can disagree with there. The activities of that person are indeed shameful. Just a couple of points I'd like to make:
1. The issue of the attitude of the current crop of adolescent males to their female counterparts *is* relevant to the issues in this thread, given that those attitudes are just as much symptoms of a deeper sickness in Irish society as the Neary case is. Some of those male adolescents may well be the doctors, even the gynaecologists of tomorrow.
2. With regard to the issue of organ retention: with respect, I cannot agree that this is equivalent to the Neary case. The practise of organ retention was carried insensitively and (AFAIK) without informed consent of parents. I don't think it can be considered equivalent to the actions of Neary, which can only have been the product of a deep-rooted and vicious misogyny. Organ retention, as I understand it, was intended to gather information on etiology of disease and related matters. It is deeply to be regretted that it caused pain to the families affected, and I do not wish to minimise or dismiss that pain. But it is not the same as the Neary case.
The following statistics from yesterday's UK Independent should make it plain:
1% of titled land in the world is owned by women.
700,000,000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health care or education (compared with 400,000,000 men)
Female life expectancy in UK: 81
Female life expectancy in Swaziland: 39
21% of the worlds managers are female
62% of unpaid family workers are female
There are 12 world leaders who are women out of 191 members of the UN
In the UK (a relativel liberal country) Women are:
9% of judges
10% of company directors
10% of top police officers
Overa lifetime, the difference in earnings between men and women in the finance sector: £970,000.
In the US, 35% of lawyers are women - 5% are partners in law firms
In the EU women are 3% of executives of major companies
67% of all illiterate adults are women
85million girls worldwide are unable to atend school compared with 45million obys. In Chad, 4% of girls go to school.
1,440 women die each day during childbirth (one death per minute)
1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in pregnancy or childbirth (it is one in 19,000 in Britain)
Sexism is certainly an issue in Irish society as well as worldwide. However, Neary butchering women for pleasure or profit has nothing to do with sexism. Continuing to push the sexism red herring obfuscates the true issue - the need to ruthlessly overhaul an incompetent reeling bureaucracy charged with establishing norms and monitoring the quality of medical doctors and the procedures they carry out.
Neary is just a symptom of the dysfunctional train wreck that is Irish health care system.
If Neary's butchery had nothing to do with sexism, where did he get his misogyny from?
There's no reason to choose between sexism in Irish society and the defects of the Irish health system in thinking about the Neary case. Both are factors in producing this scandal.
None of use are shrinks, so where he got his mysogny from, we have no idea. The issue here is no sexism - it's brutality, torture and colleagiate coverup by men and women. Even now doctors (male and female) are resisting legislation to further enhance whistle-blowing. As long as you're blowing this "sexism" trumpet you're letting Neary, nuns, hospital administrators, and certain parts of the medical profession off the hook, and reducing this debate to an undergraduate level....
'...where he got his mysogny from we have no idea'
Speak for yourself. You personally may not be able to see the relationship between sexism and what Neary did but that doesnt mean it isnt there. Fact is, you dont understand the first thing about sexism and how it is affecting women everywhere and yet you choose to lecture us about our lives and to tell us what we should think. That is sexist too. You should listen to us and respect what we have to say about this, because like it or not, we know better than men what this about and how it plays out. WE are the experts where this issue is concerned. You acknowledge the mysogyny but prefer to think of it as having spontaneously ocurred, it seems. Mysogyny is socially constructed. Of course women play their part in the scheme of things wherever they are unwilling, unable or too cowed to challenge the status quo. Not everybody wants to sacrifice their livelihood or future career. Not everybody wants to experience the sort of sneering ostracisation, subtle or overt that we know will result from any challenge to sexism. Most men have a nasty habit of relocating their resentment when that happens: they start to victimise you - to niggle at you and are hypercritical, they find ways of caricaturing you as unpleasant. They close ranks and become obstructive and unkind. They are incapable of taking it on the chin and giving careful consideration to what you have to say. There is no live and let live like there is between men. Your own response here is a textbook example. You have attacked me personally on this thread and within the editorial collective, you have sent me a vulgar email privately - your rage at me is going down the same road as Neary went. It's extremely unpleasant to work and live with that sort of reaction. Much easier to turn a blind eye. And that's exactly how Neary got away with it - becaue there are millions of arrogant mysogynists like you ready to play their part in shouting women like me down whenever we speak up. It's a sexist cowboy's charter.
The sexism, though, as the Irishman in St Petersburg has said, is not the only factor at issue in what Neary did but it is nevertheless the primary explanation for it.
I understand that if you relocated to an "gender enlightened" society like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Yemen and Libya you would never again have to worry about being looked poorly after by a male gynecologist or other doctor. Unfortunately you might find it difficult to recieve medical care of any sort as female doctors are rare or nonexistant.
Maybe a less satisfactory option woulld be to consider moving to the great Satan America, where for the first time in history in 2003 women outnumbered men in applying to medical schools (50.8%), and represented 49.7% of all entering medical students. If you could afford it, you could even select any doctor your heart desired - male or female.
Through all the abusive (or what it just me) ranting in your posts, Ms. Cotton, I was unable to ascertain any actionable suggestions. Yes, of course we know all men are monsters and the root of all evil, but how would you go about fixing the problem in real life?
Let's deconstruct Mr T's post and analyse it for its sexism:
First of all there is the contrived hauteur and the marshalling of statistics which proove precisely nothing in terms of what is actually being discussed. We also have the feigned voice of what is presumably supposed to be reason and common sense. Predictably, there is the inevtiable personal nature of the comments and, embarassingly, a failure even to begin to address what has been said before. Nothing ruffles the feathers of the chauvinist like an articulate and assertive woman.
'I understand that if you relocated to a "gender enlightened" society like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Yemen and Libya you would never again have to worry about being looked poorly after by a male gynecologist or other doctor. Unfortunately you might find it difficult to recieve medical care of any sort as female doctors are rare or nonexistant.'
And this is supposed to justify what sexism there is in other societies? It makes it ok for males doctors to be sexist here? Unless we are actually being butchered or fatally neglected we should shut up and take what's coming? Somebody said all comparisons are odious and this must be one of the most odious and I've seen.
"Maybe a less satisfactory option woulld be to consider moving to the great Satan America, where for the first time in history in 2003 women outnumbered men in applying to medical schools (50.8%), and represented 49.7% of all entering medical students. If you could afford it, you could even select any doctor your heart desired - male or female."
As was said above, In America, 35% of lawyers are women but just 5% are partners in law firms. The number of female entrants to the profession has exceeded males for a while now but the glass ceiling is still alive and kicking. Numbers of entrants to a profession tells us nothing about the attitudes that women will meet once they are there. The medical profession in most westrn countries is still massively dominated by men at management level - despite the huge numbers of women entering the profession for the last two decades. It certainly is the case here in Ireland which is the country we are talking about.
'Through all the abusive (or what it just me) ranting in your posts, Ms. Cotton,'
A woman expresses her opinion and that is called ranting. A man states his opinion, and that's just him having an opinion. And, by some nightmare form of logic, merely by describing the effects on women of male sexism she is being 'abusive'. Ergo, if she smiled and simpered through it all, that of course would make her into a very good girl indeed, the sort who is pleasant to be around and who never would make any man feel at all uncomfortable about what he is doing, regardless of the effect on herself.
' I was unable to ascertain any actionable suggestions.'
That much is obvious. Have you considered, though, that it may be much more a matter of your own inability to understand what was said? Worth considering, you know.
'Yes, of course we know all men are monsters'
Who said men were monsters? Nothing even remotely like that has been said.
' but how would you go about fixing the problem in real life?'
The actionable suggestion was, in fact, that you should listen to and respect what women are telling you about this issue. That would go a long way to 'fixing it'. But apparently that is the one actionable suggestion you are completely unwilling to consider. Pity.
Ms Woolfe:
"The actionable suggestion was, in fact, that you should listen to and respect what women are telling you about this issue."
Assume for a moment that this is the case.
Now what?
Isnt it always hard to identify the workings of sexism or racism? We dont always know what goes on in the heads of individuals and establishing motive is almost impossible in the absence of self incriminating evidence. As above, those who want to ignore the sexism can simply brush over the trail and claim, as did the tobacco compaines for decades, that if you cant prove beyond doubt that there is a connection between cause and effect (smoking and lung cancer), then it didnt happen. But surely this the wrong argument , just as the deflecting argument that worse things happen at sea (or in Saudi Arabia etc) is a false trail.
So cant we simply look at the evidence we do have. We have Dr Neary's own words and actions to show an arrogance and intrusiveness over women he treated over a consistent period of time. We have the failure of the people and the system around him to identify or address his fault, and perhaps more importantly to be sufficiently alarmed that it was wrong. And thirdly we have the rush to pathologise this as the workings of a single 'bad person', and therefore identify it as a case from which none of us could or should learn.
As a man following this debate, I feel a sense of shame that this happened for all the reasons stated by others above, but more importantly, a case from which we can learn how we might be contributing ourselves to the collective sexism in our society. Equally, I agree that there is an equal sense of shame about the unaccontability of those in power across the country, and again a sense of shame that we are not all speaking out wherever we see it.
A man who comes out with the comment that "the crib is gone, but the playpen is still there" to a woman after removing her womb is driven by guilty of sexism? What a handy excuse that meets all the criteria of right-onism while conveniently providing Neary with a reason that is an insult to all women who suffered. What he did was appalling brutality, one of violence, why he did it, is not clear to anyone, but he did it, and that's the point, and there was a cover up and denial. "Yes, your honour, I did it because of sexism, but it's socially constructed, so can I go now?"
Unfortunately for you, you (I presume women) are NOT the experts in such matters judging by your dismal cunt chorous -power analysis that would be better off being read out by Pamela Flood at the Irish edition of the Vagina Monolgues.
Clearly you haven't read the report.
Can you please refrain from using figures in relation to symphysiotomies without quoting your source of that information.
I am the source of that information, they are my sttistics and for the record Dr M neary is the oe assisted me in compiling such statistics.
In future please do not use them without my permission and if you do please quote the source. The figures were only a small part of analysis I did for the Lourdes Inquiry to show the picture of the practices at OLOL, Drogheda
Sheila Martin