THERE WAS undoubtedly delay in diagnosing and treating a woman who developed septic shock after a procedure at the Galway Clinic in 2005, a Medical Council fitness to practise inquiry was told yesterday.
Dr Peter Boylan, a consultant obstetrician and former master of the National Maternity Hospital, said if Saundra O’Connor (39), from Claregalway, Co Galway, was given antibiotics earlier it would probably have made a “substantial difference”.
After the laparoscopy – during which an ovarian cyst was removed – Ms O’Connor developed peritonitis, an infection which caused septic shock, multiorgan failure, cardiac arrest and severe brain damage. She died three years later at University College Hospital Galway (UCHG).
Dr Andrea Hermann, the consultant gynaecologist who performed the laparoscopy, is before the fitness to practise inquiry in relation to care she provided to Ms O’Connor and six other patients at the Galway Clinic between February 2005 and November 2008.
She has already admitted professional misconduct in relation to her care of Ms O’Connor.
Dr Boylan was also questioned about Dr Hermann’s treatment of a 39-year-old mother of two with a blood-clotting disorder on whom she performed a hysterectomy in March 2008. The unnamed patient had to be admitted to UCHG 12 days later after she developed a haematoma that got infected.
Dr Boylan, a witness called by Dr Hermann’s legal team, said he did not have any criticism of her care of this patient. He understood she had taken the advice of a haematologist in relation to treatment of the patient if she bled during surgery and this was what he would have done.
However, the haematologist previously told the committee he had had a general conversation with her about operating on a patient with a Factor 11 deficiency but did not regard it as a consultation.
Ultimately the patient did not bleed much during the operation, Dr Boylan said. He added that it took UCHG a number of days to realise the significance of the patient’s Factor 11 deficiency when she was admitted. Part of this, he suggested, was due to the fact that it was extremely rare, with only about four cases in the Republic.
The fitness to practise inquiry, which began last October, is expected to conclude soon.