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A NEW REDRESS scheme is to open for women who underwent unnecessary operations under Dr Michael Neary.
The new scheme is aimed at women who were over the age of 40 when the surgery was carried out on them and who were excluded from the original compensation scheme, which was introduced after the full extent of Neary’s actions became public.
It is estimated that there are around 35 women who will qualify with each likely to receive between €60,000 and €100,000.
Ads were placed in national newspapers this morning to inform the women about the new scheme.
Neary was struck off the medical register in 2003 and became the subject of a government inquiry which found that he had carried out almost 200 unnecessary peripartum hysterectomies and dozens of unnecessary oophorectomies, which involve the removal of a woman’s ovaries, at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda over the course of his 25 year career there. The surgeries rendered women menopausal and stopped them from having more children.
The inquiry into his actions found that he often carried out the surgeries on the basis of a diagnosis that was little more than a clinical “hunch” and that they were medically unwarranted. He has never faced criminal prosecution for his actions.
His actions came to light after two midwives working at the maternity unit at the hospital raised concerns that the surgeon was carrying out an unusually high number of hysterectomies and over his out of date clinical practices.
The Government approved the new scheme in July of this year. Around 200 patients received compensation under the original Lourdes Hospital redress scheme.
Applications can be made from tomorrow and the scheme will remain open to applications for 30 days.
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Why was he never held accountable? Why? Ireland’s very own Goebels.Despicable. Why didn’t it get taken to the Human Rights Court when out own system let these women down .
Yes I agree he should be in jail. Everyone in Drogheda knew about him and many went North or to Dublin to have their babies. Everyone was too scared to speak out lest they loose their own jobs.
Clearly Irish women’s wombs and creativity are not worth much with the amount of money they will receive. For a lifetime of misery.
The worst feeling has to be that Neary has never been jailed
Justice has to be SEEN, To be done.!
Its a shame that when he was burgled and assaulted that he didnt have his head removed when he went there for medical assistance. Why isnt he in jail?
‘there’ being hospital
Neary should be behind bars along with those who helped him and those in management who should have stopped him. The hospital at the centre of this also needs to be held accountable, did they not have any checks in place to stop this kind of abuse of patients taking place? I cannot believe he has never been arrested and charged, only in Ireland would a monster like Neary be allowed to walk around scot free.
Well, I heard one nurse tried to get the truth out and lost her job.
These doctors were treated like “gods”
Even see the way the nurses have to walk feet behind them on their rounds and the fear in the nurses body language.
We just need to see old patriarchy for what it was and is.
This hospital had a terrible reputation- not just Neary.
People even carried cards stipulating that in emergency Do not bring me to MMM Drogheda.
Also in the 1990′s unmarried girls were treated like sinners and made to suffer. You had to have seen it and experienced it to comprehend.
Why was this man not jailed
its Ireland.
They were just women after all, second class citizens. That was the mentality and no one can say otherwise.
Well done to the women, their persistence with the support of Patient Focus – they now have got for us what our solicitors couldn’t
Redress? What redress? Still the same old, same old. Trying to save money at the expense of justice. The Supreme Court awarded one of these women 250,000 10 years ago: today the Government offers 60,000 – 100,000 for the same injury. Women over 40 were having children when Judge Harding Clark excluded them on age grounds from the terms of a so-called redress scheme that was then rubber stamped by HSE funded patient groups. And what’s this about 30 days in which to apply? Is this another cost saver, drawn up in the hope that late applications will disqualify some?
have your say