Suspicious deaths inquiry for Naas General Hospital

EXPERTS appointed to head up the internal inquiry into the suspicious deaths of two elderly patients at Naas General Hospital meet today to begin their investigation.

Healthcare consultant, Liam Dunbar, a former chief executive of St James Hospital and the Blood Transfusion Services Board, and Mary McHugh, director of nursing at University College Hospital Galway, will start interviewing staff thisat the hospital before the end of the week.

They will also review all medical records relating to the two deceased and a third patient who was discharged from the hospital but whose care there has also come under question.

A spokesman for the South Western Area Health Board said the inquiry team had not been given a deadline but said they would be given all the resources and manpower necessary. Gardaí were yesterday awaiting results of toxicology tests carried out on the remains of 77-year-old Co Wicklow man, John Gethings, who died at the hospital last March and whose body was exhumed on Friday.

A spokeswoman said no decision would be taken in relation to the possible exhumation of the second unnamed patient until the full test results were available and examined, a process which could take a number of weeks.

The tests are to determine whether Mr Gethings was administered unprescribed medication or an excessive dosage of prescribed medication while he was being treated at the hospital.

He died unexpectedly and his death was put down to heart failure but subsequent concerns about the activities of a nurse working at the hospital at the time of his stay prompted a fresh examination of his case.

Meanwhile a number of other hospitals and clinics in Leinster have begun checking their personnel files to see if the same nurse ever worked for them.

The Nurse On Call recruitment agency said they had placed her at four medical centres in total, including Naas General Hospital, but that she had worked as a staff nurse before that following a period abroad.

An Bord Altranais, the Irish nursing board, will meet tomorrow to discuss the issue and consider if any action or inquiry is necessary at this time.

The board manages the official register of nurses and sets out the code of conduct for the profession.It has the authority to initiate a Fitness to Practise Committee inquiry into any nurse and to approve such an inquiry at the request of any outside person or body.

Its last annual report, in 2001, shows it received 19 applications for fitness to practice inquiries that year.

Five nurses were found guilty of professional misconduct, four were censured and one was removed from the register.