Hospital probe after mortuary is scene of Lazarus-style resurrection at Easter

AN investigation is taking place into how a man was pronounced dead at the Mater Hospital but was subsequently found to be alive.

The hospital yesterday refused to provide details about the bizarre “Lazarus-style” incident in which mortuary workers, who came to collect a body, discovered that the patient was still alive.

Red-faced hospital staff have issued an apology to the man’s family for having wrongly informed them that their relative was dead.

It is understood the man — who is in single, in his 30s and suffers from a slight mental disability — was discharged from the Mater and returned home.

The hospital has declined to elaborate on the nature of his illness on grounds of patient confidentiality.

A Mater spokesperson also refused to say if his family had seen the man’s body while he was supposedly dead.

The hospital was forced to confirm the incident after information about the patient was leaked to media.

In a bizarre coincidence, it occurred on Easter Sunday — a day associated with miraculous resurrections among Christians.

It is understood that doctors and cardiac nurses in an intensive care ward battled for over half an hour to resuscitate the man after he suffered a heart attack.

The patients was pronounced dead after he failed to respond to such treatment and medical staff noticed no vital signs.

Hospital sources indicated that the patient had a history of cardiac problems.

Although the Mater is believed to operate a protocol for the confirmation of a patient’s death, the hospital could not provide any information about such procedures yesterday.

The hospital’s investigation will question staff who were treating the man to check what tests were undertaken before he was certified as having died.

The Mater is expected to issue a formal statement once the report is completed within the next few days.

Despite its fortunate outcome, the incident is just the latest in a series of embarrassing, disturbing mistakes at Irish hospitals.

Last year, the corpse of an English tourist who had died at Beaumont Hospital in north Dublin was returned home with an additional set of heart and lungs placed in a bag in his body.