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Anthony McIntyre ☠ Last night Prime Time broadcast an interview with Carol and James Johnston, the parents of the late teen Aoife Johnston.

Ms Johnston died in University Hospital Limerick a few days short of Christmas 2022 after the sepsis she was admitted with went untreated for twelve hours despite the HSA protocol for dealing with the life threatening illness recommending that it be treated within one hour.

The case has generated much controversy and publicity because the life of Aoife Johnston was needlessly lost. The report by former Chief Justice Frank Clarke found that her death was almost certainly avoidable. The simple act of immediate life saving medical intervention - what people have every right to expect in hospital - would have ensured the teenager lived, able to spend Christmas of that year at home with her parents and siblings.  

Although Miriam O'Callaghan was as professional and sensitive as the setting required, Prime Time made for deeply uncomfortable viewing. Earlier in the day I had lunch with my own daughter in Dublin. When viewing the anguish of Aoife's parents, it was impossible not to think of her visits to hospitals when she was not yet eighteen and therefore had to be accompanied by an adult. All minor routine matters, there was never the slightest cause for concern, or fears that she might not return home with me.

Having had a number of procedures carried out in the seventeen years I have lived in Drogheda, in which I have been treated by a range of nationalities and people of a colour different from myself, I find myself loathe to criticise the front line staff. I know the effort and energy they bring to their vocation, the speed with which they have reacted when something untoward presents itself. Hospitals are a pressure cooker environment where a spare minute is gold dust. Long hours, with every patient, preoccupied with what has caused them to attend hospital and, for easily understandable reasons, feeling they should be at the front of the queue, the incessant exigencies bearing down on medical staff must seem Sisyphean. Over the course of my life I have seen lazy cops, screws, lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats and a whole range of other shirkers, but can think of no front line medical staff who the indolence cap fits. 

Still. something has gone tragically and fatally wrong, which resulted in a young woman “dying in front of the staff’s eyes”. Yet Prime Time's efforts to get to the bottom of it were undermined by a no-show on the part of the CEO for the HSE and the Health Minister, both of whom declined to appear and give the public an account.

Not providing a substantive explanation seems to have characterised the approach of officialdom to the avoidable death of Aoife Johnston. Frank Clarke's investigation was heavily circumscribed by HSE institutional priorities. The former judge complained that:

It is not possible to have it both ways and have a timely resolution while at the same time complying with the obligations of procedural fairness.

Six people face disciplinary action. But to offload culpability onto frontline staff who worked in an already difficult environment which on the day experienced additional overcrowding and shortage of staff would be a serious miscarriage of justice. A former nurse manager told the inquest into Aoife's death that on the evening she was admitted, the emergency department was like a war zone and unsafe for patients:

What I observed was akin to a war-zone. Every available floor space was taken up, trollies were lined up next to each other, blocking doors.
Paediatrics was grossly overcrowded; The seven bays in Resus were all full plus there were seven more patients there on the floor space, some were attached to defibrillators.
We were in a crisis situation, it was a major incident status in my opinion.
. . . I deemed it a serious and immediate risk to patients.

Responsibility for plugging the gaps caused by systemic failings should not rest with staff at the coalface. Those responsible for the management and governance of this society's health system should step up to the plate. When provided with an opportunity by Prime Time last night to do just that they failed to avail of it.

That must add weight to the necessity for the statutory investigation called for by the parents of Aoife Johnston.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Aoife's Agony

Anthony McIntyre ☠ Last night Prime Time broadcast an interview with Carol and James Johnston, the parents of the late teen Aoife Johnston.

Ms Johnston died in University Hospital Limerick a few days short of Christmas 2022 after the sepsis she was admitted with went untreated for twelve hours despite the HSA protocol for dealing with the life threatening illness recommending that it be treated within one hour.

The case has generated much controversy and publicity because the life of Aoife Johnston was needlessly lost. The report by former Chief Justice Frank Clarke found that her death was almost certainly avoidable. The simple act of immediate life saving medical intervention - what people have every right to expect in hospital - would have ensured the teenager lived, able to spend Christmas of that year at home with her parents and siblings.  

Although Miriam O'Callaghan was as professional and sensitive as the setting required, Prime Time made for deeply uncomfortable viewing. Earlier in the day I had lunch with my own daughter in Dublin. When viewing the anguish of Aoife's parents, it was impossible not to think of her visits to hospitals when she was not yet eighteen and therefore had to be accompanied by an adult. All minor routine matters, there was never the slightest cause for concern, or fears that she might not return home with me.

Having had a number of procedures carried out in the seventeen years I have lived in Drogheda, in which I have been treated by a range of nationalities and people of a colour different from myself, I find myself loathe to criticise the front line staff. I know the effort and energy they bring to their vocation, the speed with which they have reacted when something untoward presents itself. Hospitals are a pressure cooker environment where a spare minute is gold dust. Long hours, with every patient, preoccupied with what has caused them to attend hospital and, for easily understandable reasons, feeling they should be at the front of the queue, the incessant exigencies bearing down on medical staff must seem Sisyphean. Over the course of my life I have seen lazy cops, screws, lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats and a whole range of other shirkers, but can think of no front line medical staff who the indolence cap fits. 

Still. something has gone tragically and fatally wrong, which resulted in a young woman “dying in front of the staff’s eyes”. Yet Prime Time's efforts to get to the bottom of it were undermined by a no-show on the part of the CEO for the HSE and the Health Minister, both of whom declined to appear and give the public an account.

Not providing a substantive explanation seems to have characterised the approach of officialdom to the avoidable death of Aoife Johnston. Frank Clarke's investigation was heavily circumscribed by HSE institutional priorities. The former judge complained that:

It is not possible to have it both ways and have a timely resolution while at the same time complying with the obligations of procedural fairness.

Six people face disciplinary action. But to offload culpability onto frontline staff who worked in an already difficult environment which on the day experienced additional overcrowding and shortage of staff would be a serious miscarriage of justice. A former nurse manager told the inquest into Aoife's death that on the evening she was admitted, the emergency department was like a war zone and unsafe for patients:

What I observed was akin to a war-zone. Every available floor space was taken up, trollies were lined up next to each other, blocking doors.
Paediatrics was grossly overcrowded; The seven bays in Resus were all full plus there were seven more patients there on the floor space, some were attached to defibrillators.
We were in a crisis situation, it was a major incident status in my opinion.
. . . I deemed it a serious and immediate risk to patients.

Responsibility for plugging the gaps caused by systemic failings should not rest with staff at the coalface. Those responsible for the management and governance of this society's health system should step up to the plate. When provided with an opportunity by Prime Time last night to do just that they failed to avail of it.

That must add weight to the necessity for the statutory investigation called for by the parents of Aoife Johnston.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Anthony McIntyre Aoife Johnston HSE

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