Hospital apologises unreservedly after man’s death

The family of a Cork father-of-two who died in hospital after an alleged delay in his treatment yesterday settled their High Court action for damages for €500,000.

Financial controller Barry Murphy, 38, who suffered from Crohn’s disease, was admitted to the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital in Cork City on Apr 24, 2008, suffering with abdominal pain. He subsequently died.

Yesterday, the hospital “apologised unreservedly” to the Murphy family. Mr Murphy’s widow Mary, from Meadowgrove, Westwood, Carrigaline, Co Cork, had sued the hospital on the grounds her husband’s death was caused by the hospital’s negligence.

Liability in the action was admitted by the hospital.

Speaking outside the court yesterday, Mrs Murphy said the day of her husband’s death was “the most devastating day of our lives, it is etched in the gravestone we visit and in our hearts forever”.

She said the hospital had let them down “irrevocably and cruelly” and all they had ever wanted was to understand what happened and why.

Instead, she said, as a grieving family, they were “met with a wall of silence and denial for almost three years before liability was admitted”. It took another year before the hospital apologised.

“I find this appalling,” Mrs Murphy said, adding that if the hospital had admitted wrongdoing and apologised on day one, “the unnecessary pain and worry of legal proceedings would have been avoided”.

She said their hope was that no other family would endure what they endured and that people who went to hospital with a medical emergency should be treated as such and not left until it was too late.

In an apology read out to the court yesterday, the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital said, “regrettably the level of care provided to the late Mr Murphy fell short of an acceptable standard”.

The apology, tendered by the hospital’s chief executive Gerard O’Callaghan, added that it “deeply regrets” the family’s loss and wished to “apologise unreservedly” to Mrs Murphy, their two daughters and the late Mr Murphy’s extended family.

Counsel for Mrs Murphy said she was satisfied with the apology and was happy to accept the settlement.

The court heard that after Mr Murphy was admitted to the hospital’s emergency department on Apr 24, doctors suspected he had suffered a perforated bowel. At the time of his admission he was pale and distressed.

In her statement of claim, Mrs Murphy said there was a unjustifiable delay by the hospital in delivering adequate and proper care to her husband and he should have been operated on by 3.30pm that afternoon at the latest.

She said the hospital did not respond adequately when his condition deteriorated.

He was eventually moved to the intensive care unit. By the time he underwent surgery that night, septic shock had set in and Mr Murphy died at 11.15pm.