Fatally ill man told no doctors available

A man recovering in a major hospital from a stent procedure died after complaining of chest pains and being told a consultant would not be available to see him until the following day, his family have said.

Father of six Andrew Doherty, aged 82, from Cheekpoint, Co Waterford, died at University Hospital Waterford (UHW), where round-the-clock coronary care is not available despite the facility catering for a regional population of up to 500,000 people.

His widow, Rita Doherty, yesterday called for an apology from the hospital, saying she was told Andrew was having a “panic attack” on the evening of Sunday, November 9, and to go home and allow him to rest. Within hours, he was dead.

Local Independent TD John Halligan, who wrote to the hospital to complain about the care given to the late Mr Doherty, and the treatment endured by his widow and family, raised the matter in the Dáil this week when he hit out at Minister for Health Leo Varadkar for “failing to deliver on a promise of 24/7 cardiac care” at UHW.

Mr Halligan has called for an investigation into the treatment given to Mr Doherty in the time leading up to his death at UHW.

“No doctor was called and no consultant was informed of the change in his condition as it was the weekend,” Mr Halligan said. The hospital’s only catheterization lab, which uses diagnostic imaging to examine the heart and arteries and identify any problems, was closed. Its normal opening hours are 8.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

Staff told Mrs Doherty to go home and let her husband rest, but she got a call shortly afterwards to say his health had deteriorated.

“I could see the fright in his eyes,” Mrs Doherty recalled yesterday. “He said [as she was leaving the ward]: ‘put the phone next to me and ring me like you always do at 10.30.’ He said: ‘You know how much I love you.’ They were the last words he said to me.”

She said her husband had gone into the the hospital at Ardkeen, Waterford, a number of weeks beforehand to get stents inserted by the cardiac team after complaining of shortness of breath. A former shipping and transport manager, Mr Doherty was active in retirement and the couple had just returned from a break in Budapest.

“I’m so cross, I’ll never be able to forgive Ardkeen,” said Mrs Doherty. She said she wanted an apology from the hospital. “There was no doctor there anyway from Friday until Monday,” she said.

Mr Halligan said he wanted a full investigation into the circumstances leading up to Mr Doherty’s death. “Unfortunately, Mrs Doherty did not make it back in time to say goodbye to her beloved husband which is very distressing for her,” he said. “When Mrs Doherty arrived back, there was a number of staff members working on Mr Doherty. However, he passed away during these attempts to revive him.”

Mr Halligan told the Dáil a junior doctor told Mrs Doherty “practically nothing could be done for her husband until the consultants returned on Monday”.

He described Mr Doherty’s story as “distressing” but said: “This is the reality of cardiac patients in Waterford who become ill at the weekend and are not receiving the level of care that they would get elsewhere in the country. The longer the delay in getting cardiac intervention, the more damage will be done to the heart muscle. The closer you are to the cath [catheterization] lab, the better chances of survival. But patients in Waterford who require stents at evenings or weekends are transferred to either Cork or Dublin, a journey of two hours minimum by road.”

Mr Halligan accused the Government of “playing with lives” by not employing additional consultants and opening a second cath lab and providing the 24/7 cardiac care which has “been promised at UHW since 2010”.

The HSE confirmed that the cath lab at UHW is open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm, and that patients who need a stent procedure outside of those hours are transferred to a hospital in Cork or Dublin.

“The HSE is incrementally developing this service as resources become available so that a 24/7 service will be put in place in UHW within the framework of the South/South West Hospital Group and in collaboration with Cork University Hospital,” the HSE said.