The High Court has directed a woman suing the National Maternity Hospital over alleged medical negligence to provide the hospital with a copy of a medical chart it had mislaid. The hospital must enter a defence within 12 weeks of receiving the chart.
The order was made on the plaintiff’s motion for judgment in default of defence. The court did not decide the negligence allegations or enter judgment for the plaintiff. It directed the chart’s return so the proceedings could progress.
The claim arises from an ectopic pregnancy. According to the statement of claim, the plaintiff underwent a salpingectomy at the hospital on 4 May 2017 and was discharged the following day. She returned in pain and distress on 6 May. Tests confirmed a benign paratubal serous cyst on 9 May, and she underwent a further salpingectomy at Tallaght Hospital on 16 May.
The plaintiff alleges that the defendant failed to perform a full salpingectomy, failed to record that only a partial procedure had been performed, and did not make sufficient efforts to contact her about test results. These remain allegations in the proceedings; the judgment did not determine them.
The court reviewed the parties’ correspondence. The hospital said in July 2019 that its original chart had been mislaid and asked the plaintiff’s solicitor for the copy the hospital had provided in 2017. The plaintiff’s solicitor had said discovery would follow the closing of pleadings. No formal discovery request was made before the default motion; the hospital’s voluntary discovery letter came weeks after the motion issued in January 2020.
The judge noted that the plaintiff had known since July 2019 that the hospital did not have the chart, and that she or her solicitors were the only people identified as holding a copy. The court said there had been no meaningful response on how to proceed in those circumstances.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in *McGrory v ESB*, the judge said access to medical records in personal injury proceedings need not await the close of pleadings. The missing chart was needed, the court said, for the hospital to investigate and obtain expert reports on breach of duty and causation. The order facilitates that investigation; it does not resolve liability or causation.