Surgery victims ‘need redress’
The report to be launched today will claim the move is vital to ensure justice for more than 180 Irish survivors of the practice, many of whom are now elderly.
The Bodily Harm document, written by medical author Marie O’Connor, to be launched by feminist activist Germaine Greer, will state that more than 1,500 cases of the controversial procedure occurred between the 1940s and the early 1990s.
This is despite the surgery — which involved a pregnant woman’s pelvis being severed to allow for an easier childbirth — being widely shunned in Europe and North America during this period.
After a Prime Time investigation last year, then health minister Mary Harney ruled out any independent inquiry.
However, the report will state that such a move is needed to ensure that any women seriously harmed by the procedure — at least 180 of whom are still alive — receives the care she needs.
Responding to the Prime Time report last year, campaign group Survivors of Symphysiotomy called on then taoiseach Brian Cowen to initiate an immediate inquiry into use of the surgery.
The group — which did not commission the latest report — noted that decades after the practice was discontinued in developed countries, symphysiotomies were still being carried out in Irish maternity units.
