OUTGOING Taoiseach Simon Harris opined that a wider inquiry is required into the death of Shannon teenager Aoife Johnston at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) two years ago.
The 16-year-old County Clare teen died from meningitis at a severely overcrowded Limerick hospital on December 19, 2022. HSE disciplinary procedures have been initiated in respect of a number of persons who were in senior management roles at UHL at the time.
The Johnston family settled a high court action against the HSE over Aoife’s death last month, following publication of a HSE-sanctioned report by former Chief Justice Frank Clarke, which concluded that the schoolgirl’s death was “almost certainly avoidable”.
The Clarke report found that, as there was so much confusion inside the overcrowded UHL emergency department (ED) on the night of Aoife’s death, “there was no reality” to care plans.
A verdict of medical misadventure was recorded at Ms Johnston’s inquest held at Limerick Coroner’s Court last April, where the HSE issued a formal apology to the Johnston family.
The inquest heard there were systemic failures, missed opportunities, and communication breakdowns when Aoife was sent to the UHL ED by a locum doctor with queried suspected sepsis.
The Clarke report found that readily available medicine which likely would have saved Aoife was not administered to her until 15 hours after she presented at the hospital, but by then it was too late.
Speaking this past Tuesday night during a political leaders debate on RTÉ’s Prime Time, which discussed the long-term overcrowding crisis at UHL, Taoiseach Simon Harris said he has met with the Johnston family and he supports their calls for a wider inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Aoife’s death.
“I’ve met her family and they must be listened to, there must be a full inquiry as they have called for,” the Taoiseach said.
The Taoiseach, a former health minister, said he agreed with Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald that a decision by the then Fianna Fáil, Green Party, and Progressive Democrats coalition government to close ED units in Nenagh, St John’s, and Ennis hospitals without first creating capacity to deal with the patient surge to UHL was a disastrous error.
The Taoiseach said he was not convinced that only one emergency department was “suitable for the population of the Mid West”.
He said he had commissioned the health and information quality authority to furnish a report “in an interim capacity by January, and fully by May”.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald gave the opinion that it was “very clear that when Ennis and Nenagh closed, the pressure was always going to build” in Limerick, adding that “people were promised a centre of excellence, that they wouldn’t be left in the lurch, and yet they were”.
Ms McDonald said it was “abundantly clear that there has to be a new Model 3 hospital and an additional emergency department for the region, and that will have to be delivered by the next government”.
Fianna Fáil leader and Tánaiste Michael Martin, who also previously held the health ministerial portfolio, descried Aoife Johnston’s death as “a terrible indictment of the hospital, and what happened there, and the need for reform and change in governance in the hospital, to be frank, and the way things are done”.
Mr Martin said the outgoing government had invested in bed capacity at UHL, which he said had been “one of the lowest” in terms of the national average of beds per patient, “and it will now become the second highest when these investments have been completed, and they are already happening”.
“But it’s a shocking incident, it should not have happened, and our hearts go out to the Johnston family in terms of the loss of their beautiful daughter Aoife.”
