Neary may have 'steered' doctors through case notes

McKenna report: A second expert asked by the Medical Council to examine the conduct of the three obstetricians who exonerated…

McKenna report:A second expert asked by the Medical Council to examine the conduct of the three obstetricians who exonerated Dr Michael Neary in 1998 found that they were incorrect in the conclusions they reached. Carl O'Brien reports.

However, Dr Peter McKenna, a consultant obstetrician with the Rotunda and Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, said the manner in which the doctors prepared the reports may have made their independence "extremely difficult".

In a report completed for the Medical Council in August 2006, Dr McKenna said it appeared the reviews of Dr Neary's practice were prepared to assist one side in what they perceived to be an industrial relations argument.

He wrote: "The consequences of the reports prepared by Drs Murphy, Stuart and Prederville [ sic] may not have been as immediately obvious at the time to them."

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After reading the clinical notes of the nine patients, Dr McKenna said it was difficult to escape the conclusion that the hysterectomies were performed at a "lower threshold" than existed throughout the profession.

He said he disagreed with the conclusions of the three doctors who stated that Dr Neary had no case to answer concerning the management of his patients.

Dr McKenna wrote: "It is very clear in retrospect that Dr Neary overdramatised the clinical situation and that the consequences of his 'erring on the side of caution' was that many young women lost the ability to have further children.

"While I disagree with the conclusions of the reports written by the three doctors, I feel it is in some ways cowardly to emphasise my disagreement knowing that I have the benefit of time, retrospection, the weight of public opinion, the evidence of other experts, the findings of the Medical Council inquiry and the report of Judge Maureen Harding Clarke."

Dr McKenna said that while the three doctors did not make any criticism of Dr Neary's use of hysterectomy, it was understood that he would not perform any further procedures.

He said this appeared to be illogical, but in retrospect it was clearly a "very important part of the overall scenario at that time".

The Dublin-based obstetrician also said the doctors' reports gave the impression that they were prepared independently.

However, Dr McKenna said it appeared they had met Dr Neary and he "may well have steered them through" the case notes.

"Given the fact that they only had a short period of time in which to both listen to Dr Neary and look at the notes, it is difficult to see how they were able to consider their reports to be full and independent.

"Equally important, it is also difficult to know how anybody else could consider their reports to be either independent or full if they knew the circumstances under which they were prepared," he said.