SURVIVORS OF SYMPHYSIOTOMY were demonstrating outside Government Buildings this afternoon calling for the Health Minister and Taoiseach to listen to its concerns.

It comes after the UN human rights committee said Ireland should identify, prosecute and punish those responsible for the procedures without patient consent.

In July of this year the Government established an ex-gratia payment scheme for the 350 women who have undergone surgical symphysiotomy which will cost around €34million – it also said it would commit to the continued provision of medical services, including Medical Cards for the women.

Josephine Kerr (80) told TheJournal.ie, “I think the government should hurry up with the redress scheme. People are getting older and a lot of us won’t see it – it’s been a long battle.”

One lady in the crowd was 93, approximately 70 people came out to demonstrate, many elderly and in wheelchairs.

Chairperson of Survivors of Symphysiotomy, Marie O’Connor, said that as it stands, “There is to be no independent public inquiry…no admission of wrongdoing.”

Women will be required to sign away their legal and constitutional rights as a condition of entry to the scheme, before they know how much money they will be offered.

Another woman in the crowd said “We want the redress scheme to work, I think we’ve been treated very badly. I had mine in 1966 and to think we’re still fighting all these years later – it should be done by now. We really want justice.”

Speaking about the procedure she said:

“It was in 1961 in the old Coombe Hospital- they say you were told about the operation, I knew nothing about the operation until it was done and finished.

What the sister said to me was – ‘You have to have a slight operation’, a slight operation and to breath in and out through this thing. It was 12 months before I could walk, the only way I could get around was on the kitchen chair. They have no idea what people went through.

The group handed in a letter to the Taoiseach’s office today.