A consultant surgeon who delegated an operation to a registrar who carried out the wrong procedure said if he had known Baby X was a private patient he would have done the procedure himself.
Prof Martin Corbally, who was a paediatric surgeon at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin when the incident happened in 2010, said he had contracts with private patients and he always endeavoured to treat them himself.
"I was never advised the child was private," he said.
In April 2010, Baby X from Co Meath had a tongue tie operation, a lingual frenulectomy releasing the fold of skin beneath her tongue when what she needed was an upper labial frenulectomy, to release the fold of skin attaching her upper lip to her gum.
The after effects of the mistake included constant drooling, her mother had said, and her tongue hung out of her mouth. But she subsequently made a full recovery.
The girl was under the care of Prof Corbally, who is facing four allegations of poor professional performance. These include that he incorrectly described the procedure needed by her on her notes and delegated the procedure to a junior without communicating adequately.
Now chief of staff at King Hamad University Hospital in Bahrain, Prof Corbally today gave evidence via video link.
Under cross examination from JP McDowell, solicitor for the Medical Council, he said he did not see any of his patients on the surgery list in advance of their procedures on the day in question. The list was running late because he had to visit a seriously ill child in intensive care and he was “under a lot of pressure” to get the list done, he said.
