THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) confirmed yesterday it was investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 23-year-old woman at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.
The woman died at the hospital’s critical care unit where she was admitted with suspected viral meningitis in February of this year, only five days after being earlier discharged from the hospital’s emergency department where she was diagnosed with gastritis by a junior doctor.
In a letter to the chief executive of the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), Dr Tracey Cooper, notifying her of the “serious incident”, chief executive of the Mid-Western Regional Hospital Group Ann Doherty outlined the history of the case.
Ms Doherty said the woman had been referred to the emergency department by her GP with a query of gastritis. Ms Doherty noted the woman had a history of persistent vomiting and was seen by a senior house officer (SHO) at the hospital’s emergency department and diagnosed with gastritis.
In the letter released through the Freedom of Information Act, Ms Doherty said: “She received IV fluids and Maxolan and [was] observed in the emergency department for a number of hours, as her condition improved she was discharged.”
Ms Doherty said the lady re-presented two days later “and was very unwell. She was transferred to the critical care unit with a query diagnosis of viral meningitis.” Ms Doherty said the woman died three days after being transferred to the critical care unit.
The lodging of the report with Hiqa by the HSE is part of the special monitoring arrangement between Hiqa and the HSE concerning the mid-western hospitals that has been in place since February of last year.
In a statement yesterday, the HSE said: “The incident is currently being fully investigated in line with the HSE’s quality and patient safety review process.
“This seeks to ascertain the facts relating to how the incident occurred and makes recommendations to minimise the risk of similar incidents occurring in future. Once completed, the findings of the review will be provided to the next of kin in keeping with our policy and a final report will be sent to Hiqa.”
The statement continued: “A coroner’s inquest is pending and accordingly no further information is available at this time.”
Fianna Fáil health spokesman, Billy Kelleher TD, said yesterday: “The HSE investigation must be very thorough and if the report finds that any procedures or policies have been defective in this case, they must be acted on immediately.”
