Consultant was satisfied sterilisation op was success

A RETIRED consultant who performed a sterilisation procedure on a mother of five, who later gave birth to two more children, told the High Court yesterday that, at the time he had completed the operation, he was satisfied that it had achieved its objective.

Had he believed there was any problem in relation to the operation performed on Bridget Byrne, Dr Charles Murray said he would have performed a procedure involving the injection of dye which would have indicated whether the tubal ligation was successful or not. He had not considered that necessary and only carried out the injection procedure in about four of “thousands” of sterilsations during his career.

Dr Murray agreed there is a recognised failure rate for tubal ligations for various reasons, including a clip being placed on something other than the fallopian tube. That appeared to have happened in Ms Byrne’s case, he said.