Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

I withdraw that. We must seriously examine how pregnancy is managed, and Judge Harding Clark referred to this. Unless one is very determined and makes out a plan before approaching the gynaecologist or hospital, somebody else takes over. That person specifies the date on which one attends hospital regardless of one's delivery date, and induces labour regardless of one's wishes. Due to the fear and vulnerability, one puts one's life and one's baby's life in the hands of the person one considers to be the specialist. Unfortunately the specialist in this case is usually a man. There are few female gynaecologists in this country. Although I am not sexist, that is peculiar and unusual, and it must be changed. More women than men get the leaving certificate points to study medicine and I do not understand why there are more male than female gynaecologists.

We are here to discuss a particular situation. It is easy for people to ask why one of these women did not say "stop". When a woman has given birth to a lovely, health baby, her partner and family visit and she is told that she almost died and was lucky to have the specialist she had, how can she complain? What can she say? It is too late and would sound ungrateful to say that the specialist did the wrong thing. It is striking that nobody but the midwife had the courage to say there was something wrong.

There is a frightening chart in the report and the age of the women involved is frightening. Dr. Lynch is widely reported in it but it appears that his patients who had hysterectomies were of a different age group, although it is incredible that so many hysterectomies took place. I still do not understand it. This report is good because it makes the facts understandable and shows the comparisons in chart format. It deals with other general hospitals in Ireland and overseas, including southern California and Milan. In every comparison Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital had the highest rate of hysterectomies connected to Caesarian sections.

Section 15.1 of the report is pivotal and includes the following:

There are other issues that you can't really put your finger on when you talk about cultures in a hospital and values in a hospital and when you look at the role being played by religious orders in running institutions they were very respectful of authorities and clinical authorities in particular ... a non-questioning — that you find this deference and respect that didn't allow a lot of questioning to happen — and good service — everybody was looked up to but I would say there was a culture there that needs to be appreciated.

I spent a number of years in hospitals 20 years ago and when the consultant did the rounds, cleaners, visitors and junior nurses had to leave and everything stopped. If the consultant was visiting a patient six beds up from me I had to turn off my radio despite the fact that it was not loud. Consultants came through the wards, usually with staff nurses and nuns in tow, like little gods. Many of them were decent people and did not want that to happen, but they were sucked into this culture and were expected to behave in this way. No explanation was given as to what was wrong with one or what they intended to do about it. Much of that deference still exists in hospitals.

We could go on all day talking about this report and the awful events that happened. These women were abused. Women from 19 years up, who may or may not have wanted to have further children, had that choice taken from them without consultation. Consider the implications of 166 men going into Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and coming out sterile. It is such an appalling vista as to be unimaginable, and then files were altered and stolen.

Other events have happened in Ireland. One case that strikes me is of a man who received a letter from Glasgow University Hospital informing him that there was something other than hepatitis A and B in the blood. He threw the letter in a drawer and never looked at it. He got a golden handshake and still works in a laboratory. These women do not need to be told the contents of the report — they are aware of that — or how much money they will receive, although that is important because in some cases revenge is important. Telling the story does not always give closure. They want to know what will happen next, who will be held to account and the price those responsible will pay for this terrible crime. Many times I have seen people walk away with golden handshakes and drift off into the sunset as if in some way they did not know what they were doing. They did, and this report makes it clear that they knew what they were doing. I want to know from the Government what happens next. What sanction, action and charges are going to be brought?

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