STANDING outside University Hospital Limerick today (Sunday), Melanie Sheehan Cleary clutched a photograph of her daughter Eve.
Eve Cleary (21) died following cardiac arrest due to blood clots on July 21 2019 after languishing for 17 hours on a trolley next to a urine-soaked sink in a corridor of University Hospital Limerick’s (UHL) emergency department (ED), which the HSE opened in 2017.
Someone had used a sink next to Eve as a toilet, and the foul smell and heat of the overcrowded corridor caused her mother to struggle for her breath.
The ED was so overcrowded with patients there was not enough pillows or blankets to hand out, and Eve struggled on with her heartbroken parents, Melanie and Barry, by her side.
Eve was not assessed for blood clots, even though she had presented with risk factors and a family history, and there was no staff available to operate an ultra-sound machine. Her patient files appeared to be missing and nurses were not fully aware why she was there, the inquest heard in 2021.
Limerick Coroner John McNamara returned a verdict of medical misadventure in Eve’s death, and he said there had clearly been missed opportunities in her care.
Speaking outside UHL today at a vigil held for those who have suffered on account of the ongoing overcrowding crisis at the hospital, Melanie Sheehan said: “I just feel we have to come out here and remember Eve, we have her picture on the wall here with flowers and a candle lighting, it was the last place she was alive.”
“I’m still looking for a better hospital for people, it seems to have got worse, not better. I thought it was bad in 2019, but the pictures that have come out of there, and what people have experienced since, is horrific.”
Ms Sheehan and her daughter, Kate (20), were one of around 30 families who stood outside the hospital, under the banner of the Mid West Hospital Campaign group, in solidarity with their loved ones who had died, had negatively experienced the trolley crisis, or who were languishing on trolleys currently inside the hospital.
Ms Sheehan claimed patients continue to die in cramped conditions while staff remain overworked and overstretched.
Several HIQA and HSE reports on the UHL ED have found serious issues with overcrowding, staffing, and patient safety protocols, and Limerick City and County Fire and Rescue Service has on a number of occasions threatened UHL with legal action after it found it had breached a cap on the safe maximum number of patients and trolleys allowed in the ED.
Those gathered at the vigil also stood in solidarity with the family of Aoife Johnston (16), who died at UHL in 2022 from sepsis after developing meningitis.
Ms Johnston had waited on a trolley in the ED for 12 hours without getting adequate treatment, a HSE review of her care found.
Melanie Sheehan said Aoife Johnston’s death last December bore striking similarities to Eve’s, even though she had called for improvements at UHL following her daughter’s death in 2019.
A damning unpublished review of the care given to Aoife Johnston, which was given to her family over a week ago, found, just like the Eve Cleary’s inquest had heard, that there were insufficient staff numbers on duty and missed opportunities in Aoife’s care.
“Myself and my daughter, Kate, came here not only to remember Eve today, but also to remember Aoife Johnston on her first anniversary,” said Ms Sheehan.
Her message to the UHL management, the HSE, and Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, is a simple one: “This has to stop. When are you going to lear? Does it matter who dies out here? When are you going to wake up and reopen our A&Es?”
A record 130 patients were left on trolleys at UHL on October 23 when the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation declared that safe care at the hospital was “impossible” and it had described conditions in the ED as “dangerous”.
The MWHC has called on the government on a number of occasions to re-establish 24-hour emergency departments at Ennis, Nenagh, and St John’s Hospitals, which it claims will help alleviate pressure on UHL.
The former ED units were closed and streamlined to UHL in 2009, which has consistently been the most overcrowd nationally across this year.
Marie McMahon’s husband Tommy died at UHL in 2018 after he spent a torturous 36-hours on a trolley while suffering stroke-like symptoms.
Speaking outside UHL today, Ms McMahon said: “Another year has passed and here we are again, we’re actually in a worse position than we were last year. We still have 400,000 people with one 24–hour emergency department.”
The UL Hospitals Group has lobbied government for funding for additional bed capacity, and a 96-bed unit is currently being built on the hospital’s grounds, with a second 96-bed unit having been given planning permission.
The group has routinely asked the public not to attend the ED at UHL unless it is an emergency situation.
