'All I ever wanted was somebody to say they were sorry,' mother tells Eve Cleary case

Melanie Sheehan Cleary also told the court she  had missed calls from University Hospital Limerick during her daughter’s funeral and at the crematorium

Eve Cleary's parents Barry Cleary and Melanie Sheehan Cleary outside the Four Courts. Mrs Cleary said: "I told her she was the best thing that ever happened to me. I told her she was my baby." File photo: Collins Courts

“All I ever wanted was somebody to say they were sorry for what they did to my Eve." 

This is what the mother of Eve Cleary told a High Court judge on Tuesday as she gave evidence in the Cleary family action against the HSE over the death of her 21-year-old daughter hours after she was discharged from University Hospital Limerick and told to go home and rest.

Melanie Sheehan Cleary also told how her husband and ambulance crew battled to save Eve after she collapsed on the stairs at home in July 2019 just over three hours after her hospital discharge and two days after she fell and hurt her leg and went to the UHL A&E Department, where she spent 17 hours on a trolley in a corridor before getting a bed.

"I told her she was the best thing that ever happened to me. I told her she was my baby. She kept trying to smile. She took off the oxygen mask and said 'I am so sorry'. I think she knew what it would do to me if she died," she said.

Mrs Cleary told how she heard Eve’s ribs crack as resuscitation attempts were continued when she was brought back to UHL. She broke down as she told the judge: “I asked them to stop. She had had enough. She would not have wanted that.”

She said her daughter died at 1.50am on July 21, 2019 and “my world crashed”. She said she was thinking how she would break the news of Eve’s death to her five other children when she was told Eve’s body would have to be moved to the morgue as the UHL A&E department was busy.

Mrs Cleary from Corbally, Limerick, who was giving evidence at the Four Courts also told how the day after her daughter died the hospital sought a meeting to discuss Eve’s death. She told them she wasn’t ready but said she had her phone off during her daughter’s funeral and at the crematorium and there were missed calls from UHL.

A meeting was arranged at a Limerick hotel for July 31, 2019, 10 days after Eve’s death with hospital representatives including the then Chief Clinical Director of the UL Hospitals Group, Dr Gerry Burke.

At the start, she said, as Eve’s weight and the fact that she smoked 20 cigarettes a day were referenced she said “we felt Eve was being blamed”. Eve’s father Barry said that was not true and she said Dr Burke said "you are right".

“He said Eve was failed from the minute she walked in the UHL door and there will be an investigation to say who failed,” Mrs Cleary told Ms Justice Emily Egan.

She said on behalf of UHL Dr Burke “apologised for the death of our daughter”. Replying to her counsel Dr John O’Mahony SC, instructed by Siobhan Fahy solicitor, Mrs Cleary said Dr Burke “was crying and telling us how sorry he was. We went from that meeting believing we had an apology.” 

She said after Dr Burke retired the new Chief Clinical Director, Professor Brian Lenehan met them.

“I said what Dr Burke had said and he said it never happened. Their stance was Professor Lenehan had taken over and what Dr Burke said or had not said was irrelevant. It was devastating,’ she said.

Eve Cleary's mother told the court her daughter (pictured) "kept trying to smile. She took off the oxygen mask and said 'I am so sorry'." File photo: David Raleigh

Last year HSE CEO Bernard Gloster, she said, sanctioned an examination of Eve’s case but Mrs Cleary said it halted because she was told they could not contact Dr Burke. “I was told nobody had his number.” 

Eve’s parents Barry Cleary and Melanie Sheehan Cleary and her sisters Kate, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Emma and her brother Sean, all of Corbally, Co Limerick, have sued the HSE over her death and also for mental distress.

It is claimed that Eve was allegedly allowed to develop a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot in her vein and that an opportunity had been allegedly missed at the hospital to put her on the anticoagulant Heparin on admission.

The HSE accepts a formal risk assessment in relation to blood clots was not done but has denied all other claims. The HSE, the court heard, does not accept the failure to carry out the risk assessment was a breach of duty.

Mrs Cleary on the fourth day of the hearing said her daughter was triaged in UHL A&E at 9.50pm on July 19, 2021, but she was not seen by a doctor until 5:30am the next day. She was given a bed in a ward at around 3pm and was discharged at 8.30pm.

The case continues.