THE HEALTH Service Executive has expressed “sincere regret” for “any deficiencies or inattention” in the care of a 12-year-old boy leading up to his death as a result of a serious cardiac condition, the High Court was told yesterday.
In a letter to David O’Leary’s parents read to the court, the HSE said Cork University Hospital and the staff involved in the boy’s care said the family could “take comfort that lessons have been learned by all concerned in David’s care”.
David’s parents believed that if he had been listened to when he told doctors he was short of breath and had difficulty breathing, his condition of acute myocarditis would have been diagnosed and treated earlier, Liam Reidy SC, for the parents, told Mr Justice John Quirke. Doctors thought David had the winter vomiting bug but he had a serious cardiac condition, his mother Patricia O’Leary said in a statement. “We brought this case, not for the money, but rather to vindicate David who tried to tell the doctors how ill he was.”
Ms O’Leary, on behalf of the boy’s family, had sued the HSE alleging negligence in the treatment of David, her eldest child, who died at the hospital on February 13th, 2007, within hours of being transferred there from another hospital. The HSE had denied the claims.
The judge was told the action had been settled for an undisclosed sum, including the maximum €33,000 payment allowable for nervous shock and mental distress suffered as a result of the child’s death.
