Teresa Murtagh remembers being grateful to Dr Michael Neary for saving her life and the life of her baby. She remembers lighting candles in a church in Drogheda to thank God that it had all worked out so well.
That was before she discovered that she did not need to have her womb, ovaries or fallopian tubes removed. She did not need to go through an accelerated menopause at the age of 41.
The Dundalk woman had three children in Louth County Hospital but was advised to go to Holles Street for her fourth pregnancy because of another medical issue.
"But neither Joe [ her husband] nor me drive so I asked my GP if it was okay to go to Drogheda instead and he said yes. It happened to be Dr Neary's clinic. People would say 'you are lucky you have him' when they would hear it was Dr Neary. He was the best known, he was the big cheese."
Dr Neary delivered her baby, Darragh, by Caesarean section in June 1992. "My legs were shaking before the operation. I was given a form to sign but I never looked at it. I didn't know what I was signing. I just remember asking the anaesthetist to give me the anti-sickness injection. That was all that was on my mind."
When she woke up after the operation, she couldn't stop shaking. "I was shaking and shaking. Joe was holding my hand really tight but I couldn't stop shaking."
She did not know that her womb had been removed until a nurse told her the following morning.
"The reason given was that it was a matter of life and death. He told Joe I was haemorrhaging badly and had extreme endometriosis."
This was the first time she heard that she had this condition. "Dr Neary said Joe was lucky that I had survived and the baby had survived, but he never asked for Joe's consent. And Joe was there all the time."
When she arrived home with Darragh, "I was all over the place. It was days before I was able to think clearly. I kept crying. I was so sore and I had such an empty feeling."
She didn't feel like doing the things a mother of a new baby should do. "I didn't reject Darragh but I didn't have heed on him. I wouldn't go to get a pram. We had a world of lovely clothes for the baby and I wouldn't even get him dressed in them. I wouldn't get dressed myself. I put it all down to having a hysterectomy and hormones being all over the place."
Then, years later, the hairs stood up on the back of her neck when she heard a radio report linking Dr Neary's name with the high rate of Caesarean hysterectomies at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. An independent review of Ms Murtagh's file found no evidence of endometriosis. It said her ovaries appeared to be healthy and it found that a Caesarean section was unnecessary.
Fourteen years later, she says she feels cheated by Dr Neary.
"We've had it hard. Life wasn't easy since it happened for any of us. I felt totally betrayed when I heard about Dr Neary, hurt too and frustrated."
She often wonders why Dr Neary removed so many wombs unnecessarily. "That's the big question. Was it that he took a dislike to people? Did he pick certain people out? Did he have an obsession with blood, because he saw blood everywhere? We'll never know."
