Irish women subjected to 'brutal' surgery in childbirth

A REPORT to be published today will claim that a previously undisclosed form of “brutal” childbirth surgery was used on Irish women for several decades.

The pubiotomy procedure was similar to the controversial symphysiotomy and involved the use of a wire saw to cut the pubic bone and widen the pelvis.

Many women say they were left with a legacy of health problems such as incontinence, poor mobility and chronic pain as a result of the operations.

New evidence is expected to show the procedure was used in some Dublin maternity hospitals during the 1940s and onwards at a time when it had been considered obsolete in other European countries.

Symphysiotomies – which involved the severing of the symphysis joint – were more common and were used on a wider scale in Irish hospitals between the 1940s and 1980s.

More than 1,500 of these operations were performed in hospitals across the State and support groups are aware of at least 180 women who are alive with ongoing health problems.

The report to be published today was written by Marie O’Connor, a healthcare author and spokeswoman for the Survivors of Symphysiotomy (SOS) support group. It is due to be launched by author and broadcaster Germaine Greer and is understood to contain new details on the history of the operations and the experiences of women who underwent them.

Many obstetricians have defended the practice of symphysiotomy and related operations on the basis that they saved lives and alternatives such as Caesarean sections were not safe at the time.

However, support groups for women affected believe the operations were used for religious reasons. They say there is evidence to show doctors feared women faced with the prospect of undergoing Caesarean sections in childbirth might be drawn towards using contraception.

Instead, a symphysiotomy or related operation would provide a permanent solution to disproportion, the lack of fit between a baby’s head and its mother’s pelvis.

The State has turned down requests for compensation from women affected, though health authorities have made provision to provide services for some of those with ongoing health problems relating to the operations.

In a development which could have implications for many women, the Supreme Court last year cleared the way for a hospital to be sued over an allegedly unnecessary symphysiotomy procedure carried out in 1969.

Last year, then minister for health Mary Harney asked the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to prepare a report for her on the practice of symphysiotomy in Irish hospitals from the 1960s onwards.

However, the SOS support group claimed there were “conflicts of interest” in the way the institute was going about compiling this report.