‘No one held accountable for my wife’s death’

IT WILL be their third Christmas without a beloved mother and wife but still no one has been held accountable for her death.

Jim McCarthy launched a blistering attack on health managers last night just hours after the High Court approved substantial damages in the case arising out of his wife’s death.

Mr McCarthy said no one has ever been held accountable for the mistakes that led to her death.

Mother-of-two Catherine McCarthy, from O’Connell Avenue, Turner’s Cross, Cork, died in Cork University Hospital on March 21, 2005, after suffering a perforated ulcer. But a doctor and registrar who examined her concluded she had severe constipation.

The inquest into her death exposed shocking failings in the hospital’s systems.

Ms McCarthy was transferred from CUH’s accident and emergency unit to the care of a consultant haematologist the day before her death.

The inquest heard that the consultant, Dr Mary Cahill was not informed.

Ms McCarthy spent more than 24 hours in CUH without being diagnosed as having a critical perforated ulcer or operated upon.

Her husband, an emergency medical technician with the HSE, knew something was seriously wrong and he pleaded with doctors to help.

A chest X-ray carried out in A&E showed clear indications of symptoms of a perforated ulcer but it was not studied by either an experienced radiologist or the consultant.

Dr Cahill only got this information after Ms McCarthy’s death.

And it emerged at the inquest that gardaí were called in to examine why crucial medical files for a 15-hour period before Ms McCarthy’s death had gone missing. They turned up a few days after the inquest.

Mr McCarthy said he has spent the last two years trying to get someone to be held accountable.

“But every door has been closed in my face. My wife died, and not one person lost so much as even an hour’s work. I have my own suspicions and I have had many meetings with HSE officials. But there is a total lack of accountability. This is an organisation that was found to be negligent and somebody died. I can’t understand why no one has been held accountable.

“These people should be made to be accountable. If they were, they would be slow to make mistakes. If one is disciplined, all the others will take notice.

“It is harrowing enough to lose a loved one at an early age, without having to go through this. This wasn’t a mistake. This was people not doing their jobs. If this was someone in private industry, they wouldn’t be kept on,” he said.

While yesterday’s settlement brought some closure, Mr McCarthy said life will never be the same.

Childhood sweethearts, Jim and Catherine met when he was 16 and she was 15.

They dated for eight years. She died just months short of their 20th wedding anniversary.

Their sons, Ryan, 19, and Ethan, 17, miss their mother, Jim said, but they do the best they can.

“She lived for her two boys,” he said. “This is our third Christmas without my wife. It’s a lousy time of the year.”