Neary patients seek to widen group

THE group representing former patients of disgraced obstetrician Dr Michael Neary has requested an extension of the government’s redress scheme to all women on whom he performed unwarranted medical procedures.

Patient Focus wrote to Health Minister Mary Harney last month asking that the Lourdes Hospital Redress Scheme be extended to cover any woman whom expert medical opinion deemed to have undergone an inappropriate procedure, or had suffered an adverse outcome, in the Maternity Unit at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital while under the care of Dr Michael Neary, as a result of an unwarranted medical procedure.

The request was on foot of a report compiled by two British doctors, Dr Richard Porter and Dr Roger Clements, who examined about 60 former Neary patients last August, approximately half of whom were found to have undergone unwarranted medical procedures.