The Beacon Hospital Sandyford Limited has initiated High Court proceedings against Veronica Delaney, the widow of a former patient, accusing her of disseminating misleading and false information about the hospital on social media. The hospital alleges that Ms. Delaney’s actions form part of a longstanding misinformation campaign targeting it.
The institution claims that Ms Delaney’s late husband, John Delaney, was previously under its care and succumbed to a type of blood cancer known as IgG kappa myeloma on 1st April 2022. Ms Delaney, who resides at Weston Crescent, Lucan, Co Dublin, supposedly aired grievances about the care delivered to her husband from March 2022 until his demise. While the hospital asserts that it addressed her concerns with empathy and sensitivity, it articulates that in the past year, Ms Delaney escalated an undeserved campaign involving a series of false allegations against the Beacon.
Numerous false statements have allegedly been posted by Ms Delaney on various social media channels like LinkedIn and X, using different aliases, since September 2022. Despite the hospital’s attempts, via its solicitors Sherwin O’Riordan LLP, to have these statements removed, it appears that Ms Delaney’s statements have escalated in severity and harm.
The Beacon Hospital also states that Ms Delaney’s previous High Court proceedings against the coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, and the hospital itself were rejected. She had requested that the cause of her husband’s death certificate be altered. The hospital now seeks injunctions to prevent Ms Delaney from disseminating any false or misleading statements about the institution. Additionally, it seeks to prohibit Ms Delaney from implicating the hospital in a range of severe allegations, including murder, euthanasia, medical manslaughter, illegal conduct, document falsification, and covering up the cause of her late husband’s death.
The case, presided over by Ms Justice Siobhán Stack, will reconvene later this month. Meanwhile, the hospital has been granted permission to present a short notice of the injunction application to the defendant.