PEOPLE IN LIMERICK, Clare and Tipperary are living “in fear” of having to attend the emergency department at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), a local campaigner has said. 

Noeleen Moran, Clare co-ordinator of the Mid-West Hospital Campaign, spoke to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today after verdict of medical misadventure was yesterday returned at the inquest into the death of 16-year-old Aoife Johnston at UHL in 2022.

The teenager died of bacterial meningitis on 19 December 2022 in the overcrowded emergency department.

Aoife had initially presented to the hospital on 17 December, and was eventually admitted to intensive care, but passed away shortly after. 

The coroner’s verdict of medical misadventure was unopposed by the HSE and UL Hospitals Group.

Speaking this morning, Moran noted that 24-hour emergency departments to the local district hospitals in the area closed in 2009 and said overcrowding at UHL is a “consequence of that”. 

“No amount of campaigning, raising the issue and expressing our concerns around overcrowding has resulted in any meaningful changes to address the situation,” she said.

Moran said Ms Johnston’s death has led to a focus on “what’s going on inside the walls of the emergency department in UHL”.

“It’s completely unacceptable to allow this to continue,” Moran said. 

Aoife Johnston

“There’s been a lot of words of sympathy expressed to the family but there’s no sincerity behind those words unless actions follow from this. The only meaningful action that’s going to change things in the midwest is an additional emergency department,” Moran said.

Moran said that people are “in fear” of having to go to UHL emergency department. She said people often tell her they would “rather die at home”. 

“There is major, major fear of having to attend there,” she said. 

“Everyone accepts that once you get past that emergency department and into the hospital system there is no complaints, the hospital is very good standard.”

She said that UHL’s emergency department is “not set up for success”. 

There is a “real and urgent need” for action and for politicians to make firm commitments, Moran added. 

“We need to see additional services going in, this is the only way that this situation is going to turn around,” she said.

“Talk is cheap and there’s been enough empty rhetoric down the years, we need to see action follow from this.”

Solicitor for the Johnston family Damien Tansey said they the family still needed to deal with “the loss of Aoife”.

Tansey said that civil proceedings had been initiated.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said before the young girl’s death just prior to Christmas 2022, the family was still getting ready for the festive season.

“Little did they think that when their daughter came down and had breakfast and then went back up to have a shower that within a matter of hours, she would be dead,” he said.

“The desirable outcome in the inquest was a medical misadventure,” Tansey said. 

The HSE and UL Hospitals Group have apologised for their “failings” in Aoife’s care through their representative senior counsel Conor Halpin.

In a statement yesterday afternoon, HSE CEO Bernard Gloster said he wanted to “restate for the record our unequivocal apology, conscious that no words” will take away the pain of Aoife’s family and friends.

“I know we have considerable work to do to ensure that the people of the Mid-West, and the staff of University Hospital Limerick, have a service they can feel confident in and proud of, and we are working to that end. 

“The details of this inquest will be very much in our minds as we do so.”

With reporting by Eoghan Dalton