St James’s Hospital has unreservedly apologised in the High Court for failings in the care and treatment of a woman who died, aged 34, after admission over a fall at a Dart station.
A High Court action over the 2015 death of Ingrida Grigaliunaite alleged she hit her head during the fall but the hospital’s medical professionals failed to carry out a brain scan to identify the seriousness of her head trauma.
Writing on behalf of herself and the Dublin hospital, St James’s CEO Mary Day, apologised “unreservedly” for failings in its care and treatment, adding: “We are truly sorry for the pain and distress caused to you.”
The hospital admitted a breach of duty in failing to arrange a brain scan within one hour of 1am on November 12th, 2015. It denied all other claims and maintained that Ms Grigaliunaite’s death was not caused or contributed to by that admitted breach.
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The High Court on Thursday heard the case, brought on behalf of Ms Grigaliunaite’s family, was settled following mediation. The family’s senior counsel, Oonah McCrann, instructed by Lynda Lucey and Cara Walsh of Mullany Walsh Maxwells, said it was part of the settlement that the hospital’s apology would be read in court. There was agreement between Ms Grigaliunaite’s statutory dependents regarding division of the statutory mental distress payment, the court heard.
Mr Justice Paul Coffey extended his “deepest sympathy” to the family.
Ms Grigaliunaite, a Lithuanian national who worked as an insurance analyst in Dublin, had been out for drinks with colleagues on the evening of November 11th, 2015, and was at 10.45pm observed by a worker at Pearse Street Dart station falling or collapsing and hitting the back of her head. The station worker was said to have described her as conscious but not coherent before she began to vomit.
The case alleged she was brought by ambulance to St James’s and, upon her arrival at 11.40pm, was triaged by a nurse as “category three″, which meant she should have been seen within one hour. It claimed her verbal response was recorded as being confused and she scored within the mild traumatic brain injury realm (13 out of 15) on the Glasgow Coma Scale, which measures losses of consciousness.
When checked for the fourth time at 4am, the case alleged, her respiratory rate slowed and her pupils were unreactive. Ten minutes later she was brought to the resuscitation room where medics performed CPR, but she was pronounced dead at 5.10am.
The court case alleged a postmortem established the cause of her death was a rare intracranial injury (posterior fossa extradural haemorrhage) due to a bilateral skull fracture.
The personal injuries action brought on behalf of her family by her brother, Galway-based Tomas Grigaliunas, was against former CEO Lorcan Birthistle, as a representative of St James’s.
The family claimed they suffered mental distress and upset due to the premature death of Ms Grigaliunaite.
They alleged, among a variety of claims, that there was a failure to properly monitor her condition and to ensure there were sufficient procedures for handling head trauma medical emergencies. They claimed the hospital negligently misidentified her symptoms as intoxication and failed to refer her to a doctor or consultant for an examination or scan.
Aside from its singular admitted duty breach, the hospital denied all claims and particulars of negligence.
Ms Grigaliunaite’s mother and father travelled to Ireland to hear the apology in court.
In a statement given outside, the Grigaliunas family said Ms Grigaliunaite was the light of their lives and came to Ireland to join her brother and completed a master’s in mathematics and economics at University of Galway. In 2015, they said, she was at the start of a promising career and was in the process of buying a house.
They said the wait for an apology has “made the loss of the beautiful, talented and loving Ingrida so much worse”.
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