Cancer patient rendered paraplegic ‘would have lived longer without op’

A cancer patient who was accidently rendered paraplegic by an operation to help manage her pain would “on the balance of probability” have lived longer if the surgery had not taken place.

Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster said the death of Nora McCarthy, of 35 Ravensdale Road, Ringmahon, Cork, was “accelerated” by the consequences of a celiac plexus block (CPB), a procedure designed to block the transmission of pain from the abdomen, but which resulted in spinal cord damage in Mrs McCarthy’s case.

However Dr Bolster said she could not say by how much the mother-of-four’s death had been accelerated, whether it was “an hour or a day”.