Dail Debates 'Horrific' Medical Procedure

Health minister James Reilly has been urged to hold a public inquiry into a brutal medical procedure of symphysiotomy, forced upon pregnant women in Ireland as recently as the 1990s.

In an emotionally charged Dail, TDs debated for the first time the practice, in which doctors broke women's pelvises to ease childbirth without their consent.

Mr Reilly is to commission a report to determine why the practice, long banished in the developed world, was carried out on some 1,500 women between 1944 and 1992.

But an emotional Mick Wallace, as well as a number of other TDs, called for much speedier action to ensure women, who have been left with permanent damage receive justice and compensation. "It's very hard to talk about, it's just so horrific," said the Independent TD as he choked back tears. It's clearly another example of men trying to control women's bodies and we have a male-dominated parliament doing very little about it."

It was a French carpenter who first advocated the procedure of symphysiotomy, which involved cutting in half the cartilage that holds the hips together to widen the passage for childbirth. However, it was used rarely until better hygiene and surgical procedures were introduced for Caesarean sections.

The last health minister held a partial inquiry into the practice at the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, where it is believed to have been most commonly carried out. But TDs have called for a full investigation into all hospitals across the country.

(H)