Michael Neary (surgeon)

Michael Neary is a former Irish consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist who worked at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, County Louth. He is recorded in the history of Irish medicine for a scandal in which he carried out unnecessary surgical removal of the wombs of 129 women, many of them immediately after delivery of a baby. He was placed on administrative leave in 1998 and suspended by the Irish Medical Council in 1999 pending investigation. In 2003 the Council found him guilty of professional misconduct and struck him off the Irish Register of Medical Practitioners. The affair became a national scandal and led to state compensation: on 18 April 2007 the Minister of Health, Mary Harney, announced a 45 million euro scheme to cover up to 172 patients who had surgery between 1974 and 1998.