The High Court has rejected a woman’s negligence claim over a symphysiotomy performed at Dublin’s Coombe Hospital in 1963, finding that she had not proved there was no justification for the procedure at the time.
Mr Justice Cross delivered judgment on 1 May 2015 after a 15-day hearing. The plaintiff, Linda Farrell, alleged that the operation was unnecessary and negligent. She had narrowed her case to the claim that there was no justification in any circumstances for performing a symphysiotomy on her when it was done.
The judge accepted that Ms Farrell had not known the procedure was to be performed. He also accepted evidence that she experienced continuing pelvic instability, incontinence exacerbated by the operation, and psychological distress. The judgment records that the operation was carried out 12 days before her first child was born. She later gave birth by forceps delivery.
The defendant argued that the claim should be dismissed because the 51-year delay made a fair defence impossible, and that the action was outside the time limit. The judge rejected both arguments. He found no real prejudice in defending the reformulated case, and held that the two-year period began when Ms Farrell received her hospital records in August 2011, leaving her September 2012 proceedings within time.
On liability, the court considered the medical practice and evidence available in 1963. The hospital notes recorded pelvic X-ray measurements and an examination under anaesthetic in which the baby’s head could not be made to engage. The defendant’s case was that those findings supported intervention before labour. The plaintiff’s experts argued that a trial of labour was required and that the procedure was unjustified.
The judge found that prophylactic symphysiotomy without a trial of labour was a controversial but accepted, limited option in Dublin maternity hospitals at the time. He concluded that the plaintiff had not established that the practice had defects that ought to have been obvious, or that there was no justification for the operation in her circumstances. He stressed that he was deciding the effect on this plaintiff, not making a general finding about the procedure’s effects on patients.
The negligence claim therefore failed. The judgment does not award damages to Ms Farrell.