Report finds rate of hysterectomies ‘truly shocking’

THE cautionary tale of what happened at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, where an inordinately high number of women had their wombs removed, was, we are told, “set in a time of unquestioning submission to authority, whether religious or civil, when nurses and doctors were in abundant supply and permanent jobs were few and treasured.”

To put what happened in context, we are told: “It is a story of a relatively small but very busy hospital which operated by a separate and unique set of rules, and was accountable to a religious community (Medical Missionaries of Mary/MMM) rather than to objective medical standards.”

These are the words of Judge Maureen Harding Clark in the report of the Lourdes Inquiry, set up to investigate the high rate of peripartum hysterectomies (womb removal within six weeks of delivery) at “The Lourdes” over a 25-year period from 1974 to 1998, during which time consultant obstetrician Michael Neary worked at the hospital.