Groups count needless deaths

THE notice announcing the death of Patrick Walsh said he had gone peacefully but if that is so, the retired farmer’s last moments contrast starkly with the strife his untimely passing has left behind.

Last Friday, Mr Walsh became the latest addition to a tragic list drawn up by campaigners in Monaghan who have taken on the grim job of recording cases of patients who die because their local hospital cannot, or is not allowed, treat them.

The 70-year-old widower from Carrickmacross died from a bleeding ulcer while staff at Monaghan General Hospital waited anxiously for a phone call from any one of three other hospitals they had contacted to look for a surgical bed for him.

They would have carried out surgery themselves but it had gone past 5pm, the cut-off point past which their theatre nurses are not insured to work.

News of Mr Walsh’s death filtered out as members of the Monaghan Hospital Community Alliance prepared to meet Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who was fulfilling a number of public engagements in Monaghan and had a pencilled in a lot for them in Castleblaney.

Alliance chairman Peadar McMahon greeted the Taoiseach with the news and verbally reproduced his list. By his reckoning, Mr Walsh represented the 16th needless death since 2002.

One of the most harrowing was that of baby Bronagh Livingstone who died in December 2002 when her mother, Denise, was turned away from Monaghan General at night in the advanced stages of a difficult labour.

Denise gave birth to her premature daughter in an ambulance on the 25-mile journey to Cavan General Hospital with no doctor or nurse present. The infant died shortly after their arrival at Cavan.

A report ordered by then Health Minister Micheal Martin found that Ms Livingstone should not have been moved but should have received emergency treatment at Monaghan despite the fact that the hospital’s maternity services had been shut down the previous year.

But in June this year it emerged that a two-week-old baby from Emyvale had died at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin after enduring a two-hour ambulance transfer from Monaghan.

The infant had collapsed from a heart condition that went undetected at her birth and while doctors at Monaghan this time did provide emergency treatment and attempted to stabilise her, they had to pass her on to Dublin because they did not have neo-natal intensive care facilities to provide ongoing treatment.

In October 2004, 72-year-old Benny McCullagh, who lived 500 yards from the hospital was sent to Cavan General, 40 minutes’ drive away, after suffering a heart attack, because Monaghan had been taken off call for emergencies. He died on the journey.

Three months later, a 55-year-old man was pronounced dead on arrival at Cavan General. He too had suffered a heart attack just minutes away from Monaghan General.