HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster has declined to express confidence in the management of University Hospital Limerick following the death of 16-year-old Aoife Johnston there over a year ago.
On Friday Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly refused to express confidence in the management of UHL after a report on Ms Johnston’s death found overcrowding in its emergency department was “endemic”. Ms Johnston, from Shannon, Co Clare, died in the hospital in December 2022 after waiting for 12 hours to be treated in the emergency department. She was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and later developed sepsis.
Asked on Sunday if he had confidence in the management of the hospital, Mr Gloster said he was satisfied with the arrangements that were now in place and the additional assurance provided by his recent appointment of regional executive officer Sandra Broderick, to whom UHL management must now report.
Before Christmas Mr Gloster tasked former chief justice Mr Justice Frank Clarke to carry out an independent investigation into the teenager’s death and the governance of the hospital. Asked if staff should lose their jobs if this report finds there were failings by senior managers, he said he could not engage in “speculation or presumption” about this “tragic but complex matter”.
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“There has been no finding against any individual at the moment. It is very important that there is accountability but equally I will not commit my staff to trial by social media or summary justice or populism,” he told RTÉ Radio 1′s This Week programme.
Separate to Mr Justice Clarke’s investigation Mr Gloster said he has asked for further assurance about governance of the hospital. The responses received on Friday were under consideration.
Repeating earlier apologies to Ms Johnston’s family, he said he hoped to meet them soon: “Nothing I can say can take away the pain and grief they must be experiencing...it is just so dreadfully tragic.”
There was no reason anyone living in the midwest and requiring emergency care should not go to UHL, he said. Staffing in UHL had grown by over 1,000 since January 2020, including more than 300 additional nurses.
He said flu cases are expected to peak this week but would “tail on” into the following week. Over 2,645 cases of flu were notified in the first week of this year.
He said hospitals were under significant pressure “but holding relatively well”. In relation to the freeze on recruitment in the health service, he said this would remain in place “in part” for now, but exemptions were being given for some frontline services.
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