Michael Neary (surgeon)

Michael Neary is a retired Irish consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist. He gained notoriety when it was discovered that he had performed what was considered an inordinate number of caesarian hysterectomies during his time at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, County Louth. “The name of Michael Neary was temporarily removed from the Medical Register by the High Court on 5 February (1999) with effect from 17 February.” He was suspended by the Irish Medical Council in 1999 pending their investigations, and then struck off the Register of Medical Practitioners in 2003. As a result of the Medical Council's investigation, which discovered a number of alarming aspects to the case, an inquiry was set up in April 2004 by the then Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin to investigate the matter. Their report was made public by the Tánaiste, and Minister for Health Mary Harney in February 2006. The Lourdes Hospital Inquiry report was written by Judge Maureen Harding-Clarke, a prominent Irish judge. She and her team interviewed Dr. Neary himself, most hospital staff in Drogheda and various action groups and patients.

During the inquiry, Judge Harding-Clarke's offices were broken into at least three times, she has said.

Her report repeated many findings of the Medical Council's investigation (which she criticised for taking too long), but delved much deeper into Dr. Neary's actions, and those of his colleagues.

The Inquiry found that Dr. Neary carried out 129 of 188 peripartum hysterectomies carried out in the hospital over a 25-year period, some on very young women of low parity. The average consultant obstetrician carries out 5 or 6 of these operations in their entire career. The judge also found that numerous patient files had disappeared from the hospital, obviously removed by people sympathetic to Michael Neary, she wrote. She was unable to find out who removed the files but believes the person to be female. She criticised the 'Catholic ethos' of the hospital at the time. Sterilisation was forbidden, contraception was unavailable, but she reported that 'secondary' sterilisations were commonly and sympathetically carried out on women who did not want more children but were forbidden to use contraception by the Church. Dr. Neary said this was the main reason he carried out so many hysterectomies. He also said the number in the report was wrong, that it was actually less. The report states that there was a "culture of respect and fear" in the unit so that even when questions were raised, people did not have the opportunity or the courage to speak out. The Inquiry came to the conclusion that Dr. Neary had a "heightened sense of danger" and that his fear of losing a patient approached "phobic dimensions" and led him to practice defensive medicine and carry out hysterectomies when he feared losing a patient. Judge Harding-Clarke wrote that questions should have been asked in the hospital long before 1998, when things first came to light. "The unplanned sterilisation of a young woman, as some of Dr. Neary's patients were, is too high a price to pay for a surgeon's phobias,” states the inquiry report. One anaesthetist appointed to Lourdes in the 90s told the Inquiry that while people who worked with Dr. Neary come out and criticise him now, they "all thought he was wonderful" in 1996. Dr. Neary was seen as a hard-working consultant and was much respected in the area.

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Wikipedia