A man who underwent head surgery to remove an enlarged blood vessel 11 years ago and is now partially paralysed told the High Court yesterday he would not have undergone the operation if he had been told beforehand there was a possibility he might die.
Mr John Rooney (45), a former art teacher, of Keenaghan, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, said he was not told by the surgeon who performed the operation on him in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, on April 23rd, 1987, there was a possibility of suffering a stroke-like disability or even death.
Mr Rooney is now partially paralysed on his left side after undergoing a 12-hour operation at the hospital, following which he spent three days in a coma.
He was being cross-examined on the second day of his action against a consultant neurosurgeon, Mr Fergus Donovan, and the board of management of St Vincent's Hospital.
He alleges negligence by the surgeon and the hospital and says he was left in a paralysed state after the operation for the removal of the arterio-venous malformation in his head.
Both the surgeon and the hospital deny any alleged negligence or breach of duty. Alternatively, they plead that, if Mr Rooney suffered excessive bleeding or dense hemiplegia, these were not due to the alleged or any acts or omissions on their part.
Yesterday, Mr Rooney told Mr John Fitzgerald SC, for the defendants, that he went back to work as an art teacher in Leitrim in September 1987. But by the 1991/1992 school year, his teaching hours had been cut and when he queried this was told it was on account of his disability. He was now living on a disability allowance of £75.50 a week.
Before his operation, by March/April 1987 he had heard and read about people undergoing brain surgery and ending up as vegetables, he said. But Mr Donovan had assured him the operation was a minor one and that he would soon be back at work, he claimed. The surgeon told him the enlarged blood vessel in his head was causing the epilepsy seizures from which he suffered.
Dr Andrew James Molyneaux, consultant neuro-radiologist at the Radcliff Infirmary, Oxford, said arterio-venous malformations were usually present at birth and could cause bleeding, inflammation of the brain resulting in epilepsy or nothing at all. A person might die never realising they had the condition. The hearing before Mr Justice O'Donovan continues today.