Barrister Simon Mills said the section of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill creating a criminal offence for abortion with imprisonment of up to 14 years, was “overbroad in the offence that it creates”. Dr Mills said it was a significant…
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Eamon O’Dwyer: exclude abortion for suicide ideation from the proposed legislation
As a consultant obstetrician / gynaecologist, initially at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin and thereafter at University Hospital, Galway, with responsibility for almost 100,000 confinements, I did not encounter a single case of suicide. If, instead of strengthening the Medical…
Psychiatrists are being asked to be judges in assessing suicide risk, abortion hearings told
Consultant perinatal psychiatrist Dr John Sheehan told TDs and Senators that “psychiatrists are doctors not judges”. He said that under section 4 of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill, “psychiatrists are being asked to determine if there is a real and…
Tagged with: Abortion, Psychiatry, Suicide
Posted in Bernie McCabe (psych), Doctors, Jacqueline Montwill (psych), John Sheehan (psych), Medicolegal, Seán O’Domhnaill (pych)
Posted in Bernie McCabe (psych), Doctors, Jacqueline Montwill (psych), John Sheehan (psych), Medicolegal, Seán O’Domhnaill (pych)
Abortion Bill risks normalising suicide, says leading psychiatrist
Prof Kevin Malone, professor of psychiatry in UCD and co-founder of the charity Turn the Tide of Suicide, had earlier in the day launched a major report on suicide among Irish males. By highlighting suicide, the State could be seen…
Obstetricians clash over suicide grounds fears
There may never be an abortion carried out in Ireland on the grounds that a woman is suicidal because she is likely to travel to England in such circumstances, according to the Master of the National Maternity Hospital , Rhona…
Tagged with: Abortion, Suicide
Posted in Medicolegal, Rhona Mahony, Sam Coulter-Smith (obstetrician)
Posted in Medicolegal, Rhona Mahony, Sam Coulter-Smith (obstetrician)
Ruth Foley on suicidality in abortion legislation
If the Bill is passed, and some doctors authorise terminations for women whose risk of suicide could have been managed by other treatments, how would anyone know about it? How would these doctors be held to account? (Times) >
PIP breast implant link to foetal risk ‘alarming’
A new report published in the British Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has claimed that the faulty implants, made by the French firm Poly Implant Prosthese (PIP), could threaten developing foetuses. The report’s authors said the implants contain…
Posted in Medicolegal, Patients
Proposed Abortion Bill raises issues
The publication of the Heads of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill has, not unexpectedly, led to substantial political and societal debate. But what professional issues will arise for doctors who will be caring for patients under the new…
Potential need for six medics in abortion decisions ‘impractical’: Jan O’Sullivan
A potential legal requirement for six consultants to be involved in any decision to permit an abortion where there is a threat of suicide by the mother appears “entirely impractical”, Labour Minister of State Jan O’Sullivan has said. Ms O’Sullivan was responding…
Laws, not doctors, to blame for Savita Halappanavar death, says expert witness
There is no other way to summarise yesterday’s main testimony to the Savita Halappanavar inquest other than that, in the view of an expert witness, restrictive Irish abortion laws cost Ms Halappanavar her life. Dr Peter Boylan’s statement that Ms Halappanavar would…
Posted in Medicolegal, Peter Boylan
Student sues over paralysis after back operation
The High Court heard Richard O’Callaghan, now aged 27, from Deanewood Avenue, Togher, Co Cork, became paralysed and was paraplegic 14 days after surgery to treat a curvature of the spine at the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin. The business student…
Artist sues hospital staff over wife’s death
ARTIST Robert Ballagh has launched legal proceedings against three members of staff at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin relating to the treatment and death of his wife. (Independent) >
Rogue cosmetic surgeons face ban under laws
Indemnity for practitioners, including plastic surgeons and doctors, will become obligatory under proposals put forward in the Seanad yesterday. Fine Gael senator Colm Burke launched the Medical Practitioners Bill, saying it would protect patients and also ensure foreign doctors and…
Posted in Doctors, Medicolegal
Coombe faces multimillion-euro bill for boy’s catastrophic injuries at birth
The Coombe Women’s Hospital is facing a multimillion-euro bill after a High Court judge ruled it is liable for catastrophic injuries suffered by a boy minutes after his birth at the Dublin hospital. Had Eoin Dunne been effectively ventilated nine…
Hospital staff ‘distressed’ by case leaks
Lawyers for Galway University Hospital said information from statements had been passed on and commented on, often in a misleading way. This was causing significant upset to staff who were asking why their point of view was not being advanced,…
Simon Mills says psychiatrists alone should apply abortion suicide ‘test’
Clare Daly’s Bill envisaged the risk could be assessed by either a psychiatrist or a psychologist; my Bill provides that it can only be a psychiatrist who carries out the assessment [all relevant assessments are medical and not paramedical.] I…
Woman who sued over breast surgery settles case
A woman who sued for damages over an allegedly botched breast augmentation operation has settled her High Court action. Kate Murray (28) sued Italian consultant Marco Loiacano who was struck off by the Medical Council’s fitness-to-practise committee for misconduct in…
Emer O’Kelly: We must have courage to admit we are making an ethical choice
Suicide threatened by the mother is actually a spurious issue, not because it is not a real issue or because women might try to “trick” doctors, as has disgracefully been suggested by people who should have more respect for the…
Maternity chief accused of ‘histrionics’
CLAIMS by Dr Rhona Mahony that obstetricians work under the shadow of going to jail were described as “histrionic”. Trevor Hayes, a consultant obstetrician at St Luke’s Hospital, said he found her remarks to be “histrionic”. (Independent) >
Breda O’Brien on link of abortion with suicide
After the publication of a major systematic review of available research by the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, Planned Parenthood, the biggest US abortion provider, summarised the findings like this: “A woman with an unwanted pregnancy is as likely to…
Simon Mills at hearings on abortion legislation
Anyone seeking reassurance that the need for termination on grounds of suicide would arise in only a handful of cases, and would be competently and professionally assessed by psychiatrists, needs do no more than read or listen back to the…
Geraldine Kenny: ‘valuable debate complete with medical facts, figures’
The hearings were particularly valuable because the medical representatives provided facts and figures about terminations of pregnancy in Irish maternity hospitals for the first time. There was no dispute about them. Dr Sam Coulter Smith, master of the Rotunda, said…
Tagged with: Abortion, Ethics
Posted in Medicolegal, Rhona Mahony, Sam Coulter-Smith, Sam Coulter-Smith (obstetrician)
Posted in Medicolegal, Rhona Mahony, Sam Coulter-Smith, Sam Coulter-Smith (obstetrician)
Woman gets €520,000 over death of husband
Donal (Donie) Kelleher (63), Mogeely, Co Cork, died when the gel, dispensed at a pharmacy to him 16 days earlier for a mouth infection, inter-reacted with Warfarin medication for his heart condition. Earlier this month, an inquest found Mr Kelleher…
Posted in Medicines, Medicolegal
GP acquitted of deception charges against patients
After an eight-day trial, Judge Ray Fullam directed that the jury find Paschal Carmody (65) not guilty on all nine charges of obtaining €16,554 from the families of Co Wexford schoolboy Conor O’Sullivan (15) and Kilkenny man John Sheridan (57)…
Woman sues HSE over stillborn baby
A hospital’s decision to send a critically ill pregnant woman on a two-hour journey in an ambulance without the necessary blood on board for a transfusion resulted in her baby being stillborn, the High Court was told yesterday. Ms Ní…
Woman awarded €438,000 over surgery negligence
Cynthia Kinsella (52), a former secretary of Fortfield Avenue, Terenure, Dublin, sued consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Gerry Rafferty over the operation he carried out at Mount Carmel Hospital, Dublin, on April 7, 2008. (Independent) >
Doctor sued over failed sterilisation after death of baby
Ms Hurley-Ahern and her husband Garret Ahern are suing consultant gynaecologist Victor Moore, who carried out a sterilisation procedure in Tralee General Hospital in Kerry in 2001, and the Southern Health Board (now the HSE). (Examiner) >
Accused doctor ‘a caring physician’, court is told
A cancer expert said yesterday that Paschal Carmody struck him as “a caring physician who was interested in doing good for his patients”. At Ennis Circuit Court yesterday, UK-based consultant cancer surgeon Colin Hopper also said Dr Carmody “believed overall…
Posted in Medicolegal, Paschal Carmody
Cancer treatment not appropriate, court told
On the fifth day of the deception trial of Dr Paschal Carmody at Ennis Circuit Court, Prof Frank Sullivan said he would not consider photodynamic therapy (PDT) appropriate in the care of teenager Conor O’Sullivan. Prof Sullivan said PDT was…
Court hears of cure offered by Carmody
“Dr Carmody told me that it wasn’t a problem as he was getting a new machine that would allow the PDT to penetrate deeper,” she said. However, Ms O’Donnell said the PDT administered to her father “did absolutely nothing” for…
Posted in Medicolegal, Paschal Carmody
