The family of 16-year-old Aoife Johnston who died in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) in 2022 has declined to meet the chief executive of the health service again until after the independent report into her death has been published in full.
Aoife Johnston, from Shannon in Co Clare, died of meningitis on December 19th, 2022, at UHL, after she was left for more than 15 hours without antibiotics, a “vital” treatment to help save her life.
An inquest into her death earlier this year recorded a verdict of medical misadventure, with Dr Jim Gray, the emergency medicine consultant on call that weekend, describing the emergency department as “like a death trap” due to overcrowding.
An investigation into her death, conducted by former chief justice Frank Clarke, was completed two months ago.
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The family have said they were incredibly disappointed by the report, which is understood to not have made any adverse findings against any individuals or to have resolved a number of conflicts.
Bernard Gloster, chief executive of the Health Service Executive, extended an invitation to the family earlier this month to meet him to discuss publication of the report.
However, the family have decided they will not meet the HSE until the full, unredacted report has been published.
There will also be no further engagement between the family and Philip Lee, Mr Gloster’s solicitor, until this has been done.
It is understood the family have referred to the recent Grenfell Tower Inquiry and the Mary O’Toole scoping inquiry into historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders as recent examples of reports being published regardless of other proceedings.
Damian Tansey, the family’s solicitor, said they “want the unredacted report to be published. End of story” as they want to highlight “its shortcomings”.
Asked what would happen if the report is not published, Mr Tansey said he could not direct the Johnston family on what they should do and “what they do with the report is entirely up to them”.
The University of Limerick Hospital Group and the HSE previously apologised publicly to the Johnston family. Mr Gloster said the health service “failed” Ms Johnston and that failure “led to her death”.
“There is only one thing that we can say to them, and that is that we apologise, we are sorry,” he said on radio after her inquest. “We failed Aoife, our failure led to her death. We failed them as a family.”
Asked about the publication of the report, a spokesman for the HSE said: “The chief executive has said he will publish the report later this month in an appropriate format, which must take into account the HSE’s obligations to all parties involved and must respect the personal and sensitive data contained in the report.”
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