Anger over teen’s death in Limerick hospital

The death of a teenager in University Hospital Limerick proved that the hospital was a very dangerous place to be a patient, Nenagh Independent councillor Seamus Morris has stated.

He made his comments following the inquest findings into the death of a Co Clare teenager Aoife Johnston issued last week.

The inquest heard that Ms Johnston (16) died after waiting for more than 15 hours to be administered with vital antibiotics that likely would have saved her life had she received them earlier.

Ms Johnston, from Shannon, died on December 19, 2022, from purulent meningitis. She had presented at the hospital’s emergency department two days earlier, around 5pm on December 17, suffering from a suspected case of sepsis.

Cllr Morris said he was one of a few politicians in the Mid West who had consistently warned that UHL “was a very dangerous place to work or be a patient”.

He accused Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and The Green Party of failing to abolish the controversial policy that prevents the reopening of emergency services in smaller hospitals in the region such as in Nenagh.

Cllr Morris said staff at UHL were put in an awful position due to overcrowding at UHL on the night that Ms Johnston died.

He said the reconfiguration of health services that led to the closure of emergency departments in hospitals such as Nenagh and Ennis had to be abolished.

There would otherwise be other victims like Ms Johnston, he predicted.

MID-WEST HOSPITAL CAMPAIGN

The Mid-West Hospital Campaign would like to offer its sincere and heartfelt condolences to the Johnston family on the loss of their daughter and sister, Aoife, as a result of yet more catastrophic failures at the Emergency Department at University Hospital Limerick.

A spokesperson said: “We would like to thank both the Johnston family and their legal team for their sterling work in exposing the reality forced on the many thousands who visit UHL ED every week. It is not a place that any of us from Clare, Limerick or North Tipperary enter with any sense of confidence but for many of us there is no other choice. It was important to hear the truth about the appalling conditions in the Emergency Department which has been failing both the patients and the staff for a long time.

“The sequence of events of the evening of December 17/18, 2022, were reacted to with horror by many over the past few days and rightly so.

“The statement that UHL ED was and is not a ‘safe environment’ resonated with many.”