Help victims of symphysiotomy

It saddens me to write this letter, however, it involves a lot of ladies in Irish life today. Lately, we have been exposed to the horror stories of the Magdalene Sisters, especially in Cork, and how they treated young girls in their so-called convents.

This brings me to another very sensitive matter, the Survivors of Symphysiotomy. This operation was performed on women who were giving birth and for various reasons had their pubic bone operated on to make way for the delivery of the baby.

My mother was one of these victims in the late 1950s in St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork. She was 24 years of age and a very healthy married woman.

She arrived at this hospital in October 1959 to give birth to myself, her first child. A Caesarean section was not an option for her even though it was well-established as safe. Instead her pelvis bone was opened like a hinge.

Of course the baby arrived. My mam was a very sorry woman when she woke up a day later as she had 200 clips and stitches plus a plaster cast from the navel to the knees.

We all heard of the saying “A Stitch in Time Saves Nine”, , she was well stitched and went on to have eight conceptions with 6 live babies. She never walked right again in her life. She is still alive today but all of her married life she suffered with pain, incontinence and a constant sadness.

The organisation of SOS is a lobby group which was set up to represent women who were the victims of this surgery during the middle of the last century and afterwards. Some of those involved also worked in missionaries in Africa and may have performed these surgeries on women over there who presented themselves with a problem with the presentation of the baby’s head. This was the cheapest way to deliver babies as it only required a very small chainsaw.

Ms Marie O’Connor, the chairperson of SOS, wrote an amazing book on the history of these barbaric operations and the effects on Irish women and their children.

Women suffered with physical pain and mental trauma. This affected their marital relationships. Husbands had no grasp of what had happened to their wives or partners. The children born were blamed unnecessarily for causing this damage and it ended up with family rifts and huge unsocial problems. I attended for counselling to prove to myself that I was not responsible for my mother’s plight. I brought her to meet Michéal Martin in the 1990s who apologised to her for this procedure. However, that was the end of that. Today, barely a couple of hundred women are still alive and still speak of the torture they endured when having their first baby.

It is time now I feel for the State and Church to admit their mistake. Both the Magdalene and SOS ladies are seeking a compensation settlement to ease the burden of their suffering.

I feel that these women, now in their 70s and 80s, are not interested in apartments in Bulgaria or penthouses in the Costa del Sol, but a little recognition.

All details of the Survivors of Symphysiotomy are available on the internet. If you enjoy horror stories, visit their website.

Críosóir O’Mathúna

Cathedral Road

Cork