The couple who have brought a High Court action arising from an allegedly botched sterilisation operation are seeking more than €350,000 for the future cost of supporting two children born following that operation.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told yesterday the financial cost to their family to date of raising the two children, now aged five and six years old, has been calculated at €27,000 while the cost of supporting them into the future has been agreed at €354,678.
It was the third day of the action by Bridget and Daniel Byrne against the Coombe hospital, Dublin, arising from a sterilisation procedure of December 16th, 1999. Ms Byrne already had five children when she underwent that procedure. After the procedure, she gave birth to her sixth child, a daughter, in September 2000 and to her seventh and last child, a son, in August 2001.
The proceedings have been brought by Ms Byrne, Lee Drive, Calverstown, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, and her husband. They say the two children are much-loved family members but they are entitled to the cost of rearing them to adulthood. The hospital denies negligence and claims it would be "contrary to public policy" to award money for the cost of rearing children born following sterilisation procedures.
Dr Peter McKenna, a consultant obstetrician and a former master of the Rotunda hospital, said yesterday he had examined Ms Byrne's hospital charts and medical notes.
He said this was a case of the "emperor's clothes" where it was obvious the woman had a failed tubal ligation, that she should have been checked in relation to the effectiveness of the procedure and that everyone was "hedging around the main issues".
He said a reputable senior obstetrician had performed a straightforward sterilisation at the Coombe and it had not worked out, but "nobody at the hospital was prepared to grasp the nettle" and say it. No magic words appeared on charts to the effect that Ms Byrne needed to have her tubes checked, he said.
The final step was for the hospital to say "we have made an error and we must check it" but that step was not taken.
When Ms Byrne reported her first pregnancy following the sterilisation, it appeared people in the hospital believed the scan date for expected delivery rather than the dates given by Ms Byrne herself, he said. (The court was earlier told there was a discrepancy between Ms Byrne's dates and the scan dates as to the estimated date for delivery.)
"I got the impression that everything done subsequent to July 2000 was that people tended to believe the scan date. There was a corporate belief that no mistake had been made," he said.
Dr McKenna said if the matter was addressed at a senior level, a senior clinician should have written in the notes that the tubal ligation should be checked in eight weeks with the inference that Ms Byrne was not infertile until that was done. The inference from Ms Byrne's hospital notes was that there there was a genuine doubt whether the pregnancy had occurred before or after tubal ligation, Dr McKenna said.
Ms Byrne should have been advised of the doubt and steps should have been taken and documented that she was to be checked as soon as it was safe to do so. A failed tubal ligation was a major event and he would have expected that this would have been discussed with a consultant. The case continues today.