Prime Time programme about Pelvic Symphysiotomy carried out on women up to 1980's

R

RMCF

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Having watched the programme last night about the extremely horrific procedure that was carried out up until the early 80s on pregnant Irish women I got to thinking about the recent history of this country.

This procedure seemed to be getting practiced only in Ireland and Third World countries, and women seemed to be getting used as guinea pigs to train young surgeons.

Add this to the entire mess that is clerical child abuse, be it sexual or physical, and it shows that for some reason there is a history of very sick people who like to inflict pain and suffering on those who could not defend themselves. Its a dark past and doesn't show many of us to be a very Christian people.

The fact that the Church is involved in so much of it is even more sad, as they had involvement in the hospitals too.
 
Re: Last nights Prime Time about surgical procedures

I watched that programme open mouthed and realised why I left in the early 70's. The church has a lot to answer for.

The 2 most gruesome bits was the fact that medical students were trained in the procedure as they were bound for the missions ie africa and that was justification.

The second one was the interview with MOLEARY it sums up why we are where we are.


shocking
 
Re: Last nights Prime Time about surgical procedures

I started watching the programme and mearly puked. Left the room and then watched the end of it.

Medical Missionaries of Mary (who used to own and run Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda) still practice medicine in Africa and Asia. I would hate to think that money which is kindly and generously donated by the Irish people is partially being used for outdated and inhumane medical procedures. I have no evidence that this is happening, but am wondering.

For some reason, mention of Lady of Lourdes hospital in the media makes my skin crawl. So much cruelty took place there (child abuse, uneccessary hysterectomies,...) and was covered up by the nuns. Even though the hospital is now run by the HSE, I wouldn't set foot in there if my life depended on it. The place is evil!
 
Re: Last nights Prime Time about surgical procedures

A symphysiotomy can also happen spontaneously.

I know of two women whom it happened to when they were pregnant and they are still in pain of various kinds ,ten years later.

They were hospitalised for months of the pregnancy ,on high doses of painkillers,were on cruthes and wore a pelvic support belt.This was what should have happened in the case of the surgical ones.
 
I missed this ...(I had severe SPD during pregancy and the pain was unbearable without actually anyone doing anything expect big big baby).. Can I look at this somewhere?
 

What makes you so sure it's the past?
 
I can't even bring myself to watch this. I don't really know what the history or justification for this sort of thing is - depends on when Caesarean sections became possible I suppose.
 
annR said:
I can't even bring myself to watch this. I don't really know what the history or justification for this sort of thing is - depends on when Caesarean sections became possible I suppose.
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If I remember correctly from the program, Ceasareans became widely available in the late 40's / early 50's. The program hinted at the reluctance to introduce them here in Ireland was a view from the Church that they would lead to fewer births.

The whole practice was barbaric and medieval.
 
Markjbloggs said:
The program hinted at the reluctance to introduce them here in Ireland was a view from the Church that they would lead to fewer births.
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What it actually says on Wikipedia is:
Irish obstetricians sought to establish this operation as an alternative to Caesarean sections because it was thought that women subjected to repeated Caesareans 'might be tempted to use contraception'
Click to expand...
 
For some reason, mention of Lady of Lourdes hospital in the media makes my skin crawl. So much cruelty took place there (child abuse, uneccessary hysterectomies,...) and was covered up by the nuns.
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Given that they seem to be involved in practically every medical scandal that arises, how did this hospital and the Medical Missionaries of Mary continuously get State contracts to deliver public health?
 
csirl said:
Given that they seem to be involved in practically every medical scandal that arises, how did this hospital and the Medical Missionaries of Mary continuously get State contracts to deliver public health?
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I'd like to know that too.

I also wonder if MMM being nuns and therefore not having the experience of child birth or raising their own children had something to do with the mentality which allowed them to turn a blind eye at all those horrors and then cover them up.
 
I am not surprised at all by this. I still have the memory of how I was treated back in 1980 in Holles Street Hospital during labour and subsequent C.section with my first child. I did not realise that dangerously rough and rude treatment of women in labour was fairly common until later but at the time I really thought I had done something awful to deserve the treatment I got there.
 

I think so. A friend of mine trained as a nurse there some time ago. The nuns were still in charge at the time. The attitude was a lethal combination of a bunch of virgins being in awe of male consultants, having no empathy with "ordinary" women and adherance to Catholic doctrine to such a degree to make them blind to the pain and suffering they caused. Sick.
 

I have met some of them (they used to be a client) and there wasn't a single one I'd consider even remotely nice. One had the cheek to give out to me for cancelling an appointment at the time my mother died.

circle said:
They are also a charity here and seem to use the money to train Nigerian doctors to perform symphysiotomies instead of CS:
http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2010/jan/251.html
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Unbeliveable! I do understand that access to proper medical care in Africa is a problem (such as living in a village 50-60km away from the nearest 'hospital' + unavailability of own or public transport to get there) and that CS is a major surgery BUT spending money on training doctors to perform such outdated and cruel procedure rather than training more care gives for remote areas!!!! And they still insist that symphysiotomy is safe and without short or long term consequences.
 

Exactly, I'm not a medicical professional but it seems there may be an argument for it in limited circumstances, but they seem to be trying to convince places that currently have the resources/training to perform CS that this is more 'culturally acceptable'.

Also, the fact that they:
- Only promote the Billings method and no other contraception
- Refer to "doing God's work"
- Can only recall 5 maternal deaths, 4 of which they attribute to an abortion
would all combine to make me question their motives.
 

All this aside, I really feel sorry for the African people in terms of religios influence on the society. To me, this is classic example of exploitation of the deprived and vunerable for institution's own agenda. What i mean by that is ban of condoms regardless of AIDS being more common there than hayfever is in developed countries, lack of education in terms of dispelling the myth about CS,... and many, many more. People with little or no education are very easy to manipulate and if religious orders really wanted to help those poor people out, they'd use their influence to educate and improve people's quality of life rather than try to keep it at medieval standard.
 
Is there any oversight of medical practices by missionaries? I'm sure that frequently the only ones providing any sort of medical care. But if this is still going on (has Africa not got enough to deal with!) is there any way of finding out?
 
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