A coroner has declared that the treatment of Aoife Johnston’s curable disease was not conducted promptly at the University Hospital Limerick, leading to her untimely death. The coroner, John McNamara at the Limerick Coroner’s Court, cited grave systemic errors, communication lapses, and missed chances at the hospital during the time Ms Johnston sought medical attention.
A resident of Shannon in Co Clare, Johnston succumbed to purulent meningitis at UHL on December 19, 2022. She was admitted to the hospital’s emergency room with presumed sepsis two days prior, on the evening of December 17. The court learnt that the overcrowded state of the emergency room on her arrival, described as lethal by Dr James Gray, the on-duty emergency medicine expert, practically left her with no hope of survival.
Johnston was categorised as needing urgent care within a span of 10-15 minutes, yet had to wait for several hours in the hospital’s A&E, receiving crucial antibiotics only after 7 am on December 18th.
Damien Tansey SC, the Johnston family lawyer, summarised the evidence at the inquest, noting statements from several medical professionals acknowledging the dysfunctional state of the department. Mr Tansey declared the emergency department a hazardous resource for both the dangerously sick patient and the healthcare professionals working there.
Tansey also highlighted evidence of two emergency registrars having to look after up to 14 patients in the resuscitation room for large parts of the night, leaving other patients, such as Johnston, to wait for hours before being attended to.
Dr Gray, the maximum-ranking medical personnel at the hospital’s A&E, agreed that he wasn’t able to assist onsite during the night Ms Johnston was admitted. He stated that overcrowding in the emergency ward made it unfeasible for him to be physically present, joking that he wasn’t Superman. He would have been in attendance on the night Ms Johnston was brought in if he was aware.
He mentioned that although Ms Johnston received good care from Dr Leandri Card, a senior house official in duty that weekend around December 18th at 6am, it unfortunately happened too late. He asserted the hospital’s major emergency blueprint needed to be initiated to deal with the crisis, though this didn’t occur, which would have entailed on-call doctors attending the hospital.
Speaking on behalf of the grieving family, Mr Tansey expressed criticism at Ms Johnston’s unsatisfactory treatment, considering she was a citizen treated in one of the country’s top medical facilities. He stressed the Johnston family’s goal to establish and recognise Ms Johnston’s worth as a person within the family. He pointed out that they wished no other families to face a similar upheaval, hoping that their tragedy could bring about positive changes.
The court heard on Thursday how overcrowding continues to be a struggle at UHL. Despite measures taken as recommended by the independent Hamilton report, commissioned after Ms Johnston’s passing, the A&E department still remains alarmingly dysfunctional, according to Dr Gray. He sadly stated “it’s still a perilous place”. Mr McNamara added the persistent issue of overcrowding wasn’t tolerable during the inquest’s closure.