Hospital Addict

An Irishman sets a record

Stewart Mcllroy may or may not have been born around 1915 in County Donegal, Ireland. Other facts of his life are equally vague. But to two London doctors who spent four years investigating hospital records in the British Isles, one thing about Mcllroy is certain: he is an incurable hospital addict. In the past 34 years he has been admitted at least 207 times to 68 different hospitals in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales for a breathtaking variety of diseases and disorders. Indeed Mcllroy seems beyond doubt to be the alltime champion sufferer of Munchausen's syndrome.

Those afflicted with the syndrome (named after Baron Muenchhausen, an 18th century raconteur whose tales of adventure made his name synonymous with exaggeration) are driven to immerse themselves in hospital dramas. With a combination of medical knowledge and dramatic flair, victims produce or fake symptoms so skillfully that they are admitted to hospitals, treated and often operated on for nonexistent disorders.

Tracing McIlroy's hospital visits was obviously a labor of love for Neurologist C.A. Pallis of Hammersmith Hospital and Rheumatologist A.N. Bamji of Middlesex Hospital. In their report to the British Medical Journal, they meticulously listed the 22 surnames and eight first names used in various combinations by Mcllroy in registering at different hospitals. (Mcllroy was identified by the description in clinical records of his scars and other physical characteristics.) The names of all the hospitals and the number of admittances to each were also faithfully recorded.

Mcllroy's ruses worked in part because he had a real disability, a neurological disorder that affected his upper torso and arms and conceivably could have spread to other parts of his body. That made it easy for him to feign numbness wherever and whenever he chose. But he also could use medical jargon to describe the symptoms he could fake so well. When he suffered his frequent temporary losses of speech, he compensated by writing a technical account of his medical and personal history. These invariably included the fact that all his relatives had met violent deaths at the hands of I.R.A. "bombers and gunmen" --which made it difficult for anyone to check on his real identity.

Mcllroy suffered mightily over the years to satisfy his addiction. He was subjected to thousands of X rays and blood tests, his abdomen was crisscrossed with scars where doctors made incisions during exploratory operations. His spine was punctured 48 times to get spinal fluid in order to check for evidence of cranial hemorrhaging or spinal disorders. "How much Mr. Mcllroy cost the health services," the doctors wrote, "will remain a matter for conjecture. The sum must run into six, possibly seven figures."

After checking into Belfast City Hospital in 1976 for one of his few legitimate visits (he had fallen and fractured his right leg), Mcllroy made a few brief appearances at other hospitals and then disappeared for more than a year. The two investigators assumed that he had died. But he resurfaced at a Birmingham nursing home last June, then at hospitals in Ireland and Scotland, and was discharged from another one in London as recently as August. Diagnosis: Mcllroy is alive --and still ailing --in the British Isles. .

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