State to pay up hep C victim’s compo
The family of Sylvia O’Leary, a hepatitis C victim, was forced to publicise her claim in the media on Christmas Eve, as the State had still not finalised a settlement with her.
The family’s solicitor issued a statement saying the State were gambling on Sylvia dying before they would agree her settlement claim. However, a settlement has now been reached.
The State finally agreed to sign the settlement late on Christmas Eve, but the exact sum involved remains undisclosed.
If Mrs O’Leary died before the settlement was rubber-stamped, the State would have had no legal obligation to honour the agreement. The State was intending to finalise the agreement in mid-January. But after the family went public, the State agreed to sign the agreement on Christmas Eve. The 32-year-old woman suffered liver failure last weekend and has since been on a life support machine at Cork University Hospital.
Her husband, Des, who has spent the last three days at his wife’s bedside, accused the State of a calculated delay in settling the claim.
However, after the story was reported in last Tuesday’s Irish Examiner the Department of Health immediately contacted Mrs O’Leary’s solicitors to resolve the matter.
“Prior to going to the media the State would not give a commitment that the settlement agreed on December 2 would be honoured if Mrs O’Leary died,” solicitor Melissa Gowan said.
Yesterday, Ms Gowan said the O’Leary family was furious that Sylvia was at death’s door before the claim was resolved.
“She has been unconscious since Saturday and she doesn’t know that this has, at last, been finalised.
“The delay in signing the settlement was a major worry for her and there’s no doubt that it affected her health,” Ms Gowan said.
The O’Leary case is very similar to the Brigid McCole scandal. Mrs McCole, the first hepatitis C sufferer to take a case, died the day after the State settled her claim.
The Department of Health confirmed yesterday that the compensation claim has been finalised.
A department spokesperson insisted that the payment of the claim was never in question.
Mrs O’Leary from Ballincollig, Co Cork, was re-listed for a third liver transplant but she is too ill to travel to Britain for the operation.
In a letter written to the Chief State Solicitor’s office this week, Mrs O’Leary’s solicitors, Ernest J Cantillon and Co, pleaded with State to act quickly.
“May we take it that you have deliberately decided to allow Mrs O’Leary to die without giving her the comfort of knowing her family will be provided for after her death,” the letter stated.
