Max O'Mara - Human Rights Watch New York

[Gary O'Mara]

Gary O'Mara
24 South Street
Edgecliff
Sydney
New South Wales
Australia

[e-mail]

21 April 2009

Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue,34th Floor
New York, NY 10118-3299
USA

State of Southern Finland and General Medical Council United Kingdom. Human Rights Violations.

Dear Sirs,

I submit the matter of my late son, Max, aged 5, who died in so far unexplained circumstances in Helsinki in 1999. Today there are still transparent anomalies to do with the child's head injuries and, later, while in intensive care, catastrophic squealae and toxic poisoning, brought about by massive infusions of the barbiturate thiopental.

Max O'Mara, aged 5, suffered severe head injuries while attending a government-run pre-school in Espoo, Helsinki. Max was found vomiting in the daycare yard and complaining of severe pain in his head. He was left to his fate as teachers. No one called an ambulance; Eeva O'Mara was told to come and collect the wounded child. Max's face - by then - had turned blue but no had taken notice of the extent of the child's life-threatening condition or, indeed, what had caused the child's mortal injury in the first place; no one, it seems, even bothered to find out. Yet, in the police records, Max was able to tell his teachers that he had been bullied and struck on the head.

Max's distraught mother rushed her son to hospital but on the way the child hemorrhaged in the brain. Sadly, Max suffered during his last moments of consciousness, in what is often described by neurologists as exquisite pain.

There are still serious anomalies in the 6 police cause of death investigations, as I pushed for transparency and truth (Peltoniemi 1999; Kaski 1999; Professor David I. Graham (Glasgow) 1999 & 2000; Soronen 2002; Karalahti 2004 & 2005; Jorma Kalske 2005 and a district prosecutor, Otto Jemsen.

Parallel Universes in Finland - some of the arguments surrounding Max's cause of death investigations.

The Supreme Police Commander in Finland writes to the Australian Ambassador:

I personally regret the grief and uncertainty about the cause of Max's death has caused to his parents during his investigation, which lasted for several months. To establish a cause of death thoroughly, however, can sometimes take such a long time in Finland, this is due to a comprehensive investigation, which always takes a long time in my country. In my opinion, the most important thing at the moment is that the cause of Max's cause of death has been established and that the parents can grieve properly for Max.

Legal opinion by Mr. Heikki Salo Attorney in Helsinki

The deficiencies in the investigation may partly be explained by the fact that a preliminary investigation was never even begun, which means that at no stage did the policemen even suspect that Max O'Mara's injury and delay in his medical treatment might have something to with the way the day care staff behaved..The investigative measures were not in accordance with normal preliminary investigation. Firstly, the daycare staff were not heard for more than a month after the injury and after the crime had been reported. Considering the serious nature of the matter this is unusual. There are three maps and six photographs of the site and a weather report. This can be considered unusually little when investigating events leading to the death of a child. The police left the hearing of the children in the yard to phone calls made eight (8) weeks later to their parents. It is obvious that this information been obtained when it was fresh, more and better information could have been obtained. It is obvious that this information been obtained when it was fresh, more and better information could have been obtained (Heikki Salo, Attorney-at-Law, Helsinki).

District Court judge Mr. Saunaoja - An extract form a judgment concerning a case brought against a lowly childcare worker

The most obvious reason Max O'Mara was found crying was that he had hurt his head: the first statement witness Valimakki gave to the police over the phone was that Max had knocked his head against something, even though the witness later on changed her account.

Finnish officials did not follow up the judge's opinion, in that the child did not suffer congenital brain disease and died but had, in fact, suffered external violence to the head, in a snow covered playground in Helsinki.

Finnish officials tried to paper over the cracks in a hapless and clumsy cover-up of a child's death. and forensic investigations. But after having received multiple death certificates ( 3 death certificates and 1 addendum) in Helsinki - including etiological, expert witness statements, written by a British NHS pathologist, Professor David I. Graham, in Glasgow, I complained to the General Medical Council ( GMC) only to be met with self-serving mendacious responses.

I therefore seek to show human rights abuses not only committed by the General Medical Council (GMC), the health regulator in the United Kingdom but also by officials in Finland.

The State of Southern Finland – Effects of Max's toxic poisoning – Systemic cover-up of the event.

Max O'Mara - Toxic poisoning at Töölö Hospital in Helsinki

The amounts of thiopental given to Max were far in excess of infusions of thiopental given to those executed in the USA - see Lancet April 2005, (Statements by Professor Erkki Vouri, HYKS Helsinki, and Professor Peter Rothstein Columbia University NYC.

Initially the clinicians at Töölö hospital confirmed the child had suffered the effects of a subdural hematoma and a separate contusion hematoma. However, the police surgeon, Erkki Tiainen, secreted away the forensic toxicology statements, ignored the clinicians, and signed off on congenital brain disease and pneumonia as respectively primary and secondary causes of Max's death.

Then the clinicians, after having told of Max's external head trauma, remained silent about the effects of thiopental on the child's body, namely cardiac arrest, end-stage renal failure and finally multiple organ failure and inevitable death.

In short, the State of Southern Finland has, in itself, a pathology which insists that, when the reputation of the State is being compromised - for whatever reason -there is a systemic cover-up, initiated by a bureaucracy that will brook no dissent of any kind

Originally, Max's death was determined solely by genetics and neuropathology while the clinicians opinions were ignored. The genetics opinion, a Mengele-like experiment, underpinning a putative bleed of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in the child's brain, proved also to be a mistake. The author of the disgraceful document, a Dr. I. Kaitila of HYKS Helsinki was forced to retract his statement.

In addition, the two consulting pathologists M.Haltia and A Paetau, who claimed they had examined the childs's brain tissue samples and had falsely told of the AVM, retracted their statements also.

It is plain to see that the multiple death certificates and anomalous medico-legal statements, signed off by the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman Ms. Riita-Leena Paunio, a so-called child advocate, who was herself instrumental in an elaborate attempt to save the Finnish social and health regimes of any scandal over the circumstances surrounding Max's death. The childish stratagem, concocted by cunning minds, denied my son natural justice; it denied, moreover, the child's right to his honor and dignity - even in death.

European Court of Human Rights

I have not (my italics) taken my complaint concerning my son's illegal cause of death investigations in Finland to the European Court of Human Rights, for it is well known that Finnish judicial appointments are part of elaborate ruses to embed willing officials whose main purpose is dedicated solely to the particular interests of the State of Finland. For example, a recently appointed Finnish judge, Ms Paivi Hirvela, had submitted falsified data about the length of her judicial service in Finland (See Seura issue 45/2006 10 November 2006). Indeed, one of those associated with her appointment, a Mr. Paavo Nikula, who is now Head of Ministerial Office at the Ministry of Justice in Helsinki sat on the selection panel that nominated Ms. Hirvela to a judicial post. Nikula was also Justice Minister when I pleaded for transparency apropos Max's multiple death certificates and cause of death investigations.

The General Medical Council in London (GMC)

Following my kafkaesque experiences in Finland and the publication of the multiple death certificates, underwritten by Professor David I. Graham, I contacted the GMC in 2002 and raised a serious complaint of medical mendacity and collusion on the part of Professor Graham and his colleagues, Paetau and Haltia in Helsinki, to write false opinions about Max's cause of death.

While, in the first instance, the GMC did accept my complaint, the health regulator's reporting was facile and failed to take into account prima facie evidence I presented in the case.

The GMC's statement did not take into account the facts in the case; that is to say, the clinicians statements about the nature of external violence to Max's head; forensic toxicology and prima facie evidence of the child's toxic poisoning; the fact that Professor Graham had knowingly withheld knowledge that the Finns had already changed the cause of death and had extra-judicially destroyed vital forensic evidence, the child's brain sample and changed the cause of death ( see TEO, Helsinki 2002)

The GMC failed to see that, with the omission of forensic toxicology, and the catastrophic effects thiopental had on the child; the veracity of neuropathology had to be examined further; in particular Professor Graham's role failure to account for all the forensic evidence has was given and the child's toxic poisoning.


Professor Graham also falsely claimed that only did he show the histological slides of Max's supposed brain tissue samples but also that his colleagues at SGH Glasgow had, he told, agreed with him about the nature of the putative diseased vessels.

Unable to obtain specific answers to serious questions about the substance of the GMC's Lay screener's report, I complained further. In turn, a GMC senior executive wrote. As to whether the screeners properly understood your complaint, they are required at this early stage only to understand it in as much as was necessary to apply our screening test. In some cases, screeners may ask for a specialist opinion in order to enable them to understand a complaint in sufficient detail. In this case, however, our screeners did not feel this was necessary.

I did not welcome the GMC's attempt to degrade my complaint, and my son's honor, and I was particularly concerned that, at no time, did the GMC discuss prima facie evidence of Max's toxic poisoning, which put into sharp focus the (fake) findings of the child's congenital brain disease - and the manic publication of multiple death certificates that followed.

It seems that GMC's regulators, and those in Finland, too, make a fetish about the disavowal of prima facie evidence, to wit, I know, but I don't want to know that I know, so I don't know. I know it, but I refuse to assume the consequences of this knowledge, so I can continue acting as if I don't know. The fact remains that Professor Graham clearly acted in an unethical manner over the cause of death of a child. And the regulator, the GMC, sits back, or, as George Orwell puts it, it is like a mass of words as it falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up the details.


In conclusion,

In completing this sad paper, I cannot help but wonder that, in financial and economic matters, regulators have conspicuously failed in their statutory duties to protect folk. Who is to say, then, that health regulators, like the GMC, and the disgraceful medico-legal types in Finland, are any different. And given my experiences of the GMC, and their fellow travelers in Helsinki, are responsible to no body and make decisions that best suit convenience and cost-effectiveness. The health regulators, as least in Max's case, are now adrift from any moral mooring and, in short, have no respect for human rights and a universal code of doing NO HARM.

I trust that Human Rights Watch take seriously the submissions presented not only by this writer but also by those of Dr. Rita Pal and her associates in the United Kingdom. I know Dr. Pal has worked long and hard to bring to light the flagrant disregard the GMC has for the Individual, whose lives have unexpectedly been turned up side down by tragedy - and then some more, too.


Yours sincerely

Gary O'Mara