Mercy Hospital killing: Staff and patients crucial to garda probe

The investigation is expected to examine if the suspect should have been in a different area of the hospital at the time of the attack

A Garda member entering the Mercy Hospital, Cork where an elderly man was attacked on a ward and subsequently died. Picture: Dan Linehan

Staff and patients of the general ward in which Matthew Healy was killed will play a crucial role in an internal probe by the Mercy University Hospital into how he was fatally attacked in the early hours of yesterday.

The focus of the investigation will be on how and why the elderly man was assaulted by a fellow patient who is believed to have been in the same ward as him.