Coroner: Alcohol abuse to blame for many deaths

A CORONER has blamed alcohol for a growing number of deaths in Ireland.

Speaking at the inquest into the death of Dubliner Denise Condron, Dublin City Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said: “Alcohol dependency is an illness we see all too often here at the coroner’s court.”

Ms Condron, 33, of Ballymun, Dublin, died on June 22, 2010. A postmortem carried out by Dr Anthony Dorman, a pathologist at Beaumont Hospital, found she had died from complications of cirrhosis of the liver. He found toxic levels of prescription medication in her system but attributed this to the fact her liver was not functioning properly and would not have been metabolising the medication, he said.

The court heard Ms Condron had a dependency on alcohol for many years and had developed cirrhosis of the liver as a result.

Her partner, Patrick Nurney, told the inquest he bought Ms Condron a small bottle of vodka every day when she was too sick: “She asked me to... she was too sick to leave the house herself to get it.”

The mother-of-one began vomiting on the morning of June 22 before suffering a massive haemorrhage. Mr Nurney had called an ambulance for her but she refused to go to hospital.

He told the court: “We tried to help her. She wouldn’t eat. I used to cry”.

Dr Tara Conlon told the court Ms Condron was conscious when she arrived at her house at Coultry Crescent in Ballymun. Ms Conlon said Denise was conscious but was making no effort to breathe and suffered a respiratory arrest.

Speaking from the body of the court, Denise’s brother John said: “Our father died four weeks before Denise. She was very close to our father. When the doctor said she made no effort to breathe... it seems she just didn’t want to breathe.”

Returning a narrative verdict, Dublin City Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said: “It’s a really very tragic death — Denise was only 33 years of age. I don’t think she would’ve been in pain or aware of what was happening to her.”

Her brother Michael said: “I wouldn’t like her to be known as a person who just abused alcohol. A lot of things led to Denise’s situation over the years.

“Denise was very stubborn. She had issues and was on a lot of very heavy medication,” he said.

More people would want to be aware alcohol is an illness, he said, adding “lots of people just cast off people with an alcohol problem”.