A 43-year-old Waterford woman died from TB and tubercular meningitis, which had not been identified, two months after being admitted to hospital. The illness which killed Mrs Marian O'Connor, of Ballincrea, Slieverue, Co Waterford, was not diagnosed until an autopsy revealed "fulminating and aggressive tuberculosis" which had spread extensively throughout her body.
Dr John O'Mahoney SC, for the O'Connor family, told an inquest in Cork yesterday that considering the major public health consequences of this type of infection "it was a flagrant case of failing to see the obvious. Alarm bells should have been ringing emphatically and loudly. But nothing was done," he told the deputy Cork City Coroner, Mr Patrick Dorgan.
Mrs O'Connor, a mother of five children aged 13 to 23, and foster mother to three more children, was admitted to Waterford Regional Hospital on April 25th last year, suffering from a blocked urethra.
Complications set in, and on June 22nd she was transferred to Cork University Hospital where she had an operation to relieve pressure on the brain. She remained critical and died on July 4th.
Dr John Hogan, pathologist, said there was extensive infection in the pelvic area and brain. He asked Dr Michael Farrell of Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, to examine the brain. This examination showed widespread meningitis of a type identified with TB.
In answer to Dr O'Mahoney, Dr Hogan said that in his opinion the TB was present when Mrs O'Connor was admitted to Waterford Regional Hospital. The blocked urethra was "almost certainly" caused by the TB having spread from the lungs to the kidneys. The kidney infection had been present a long time.
The infection eventually got into the bloodstream and spread throughout the body. Dr Hogan agreed that the photophobia - fear of light - from which Mrs O'Connor suffered while in Waterford hospital was a symptom of meningitis.
Her notes had not been received from Waterford but he declined to comment on this. As far as he was aware, no lumbar puncture or TB tests were carried out.
The coroner, Mr Dorgan, said the case was a particularly sad one in which a young married woman had been taken.
He recorded a verdict that death was due to bronchopneumonia, secondary to acute hydrocephalus and organising meningitis, and other complications resulting from TB.