Drogheda consultant apologises for death of patient

A hospital consultant has apologised at an inquest for the late diagnosis provided to a man who died from a perforated duodenal ulcer. Dr John Kiely, a respiratory consultant in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, said the doctors there shared a “deep sense of sadness and regret” about their failure to provide a timely diagnosis to John, known as Jackie, Crilly.

Mr Crilly (57), Rathmullen Park, Drogheda, was described by his daughter Carrie Farrell as “fit and healthy”. He had only been to hospital once in the previous 40 years.

He first complained of a severe pain in his side on January 11th, 2013, and was admitted to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital on January 15th, where he was diagnosed with lung cancer. His situation gradually worsened and his family insisted that the vomiting and pain he felt was not related to the lung cancer.

Ms Farrell told the inquest in Drogheda that her father was admitted to the hospital on January 30th last year and complained of feeling that something had “burst inside him”, but she was told it was the cancer that was causing the pain.

Under cross-examination from the family’s solicitor Roger Murray, Dr Kiely admitted “on the balance of probability” that had a CT scan instead of an ultrasound been performed on Mr Crilly when he was admitted on January 30th, the ulcer might have been caught before it perforated and he could have lived.

Consultant pathologist Dr Tunde Adegbola concluded that the severe pain which Mr Crilly experienced when he presented to the hospital was due to a duodenal ulcer which had perforated. It had led to septicaemia shock. The lung cancer was an “important contributory disease,” he added. Mr Crilly died on February 11th last year.

Dr Kiely said both he and the HSE had learned from what happened. “In hindsight, we are greyer and wiser and much saddened by events. We are all still upset and I don’t think any of that will ever leave us in that sense.”

Ms Farrell said her father’s death had left her sister Donna “completely bereft”. Donna has Down Syndrome and Mr Farrell had been her sole carer as his wife has been in a nursing home for the last 15 years with dementia. Ms Farrell described her father as an active and healthy man who had been a popular figure around Drogheda. He was in the Boyne River Rescue for many years and had been a keen swimmer.

Mr Murray said it had been acknowledged there had been a “series of systems failure” that had seen a critical delay in the diagnosis of the perforated ulcer for 24 hours. He urged the coroner to return a verdict of medical accident.

Louth county coroner Ronan Maguire agreed and stated there was only one verdict possible and that was one of medical accident.

Afterwards, Ms Farrell said she felt “very vindicated” by the coroner’s verdict. “I hope in the future that patients and their families are listened to and that nobody will have to go through this again.”

Patient Focus advocacy co-ordinator Cathriona Molloy said Ms Farrell had been correct in her belief that it was not cancer which killed her father. “I’m glad that Dr Kiely and the HSE admitted what they admitted and gave the family some closure. The patient knows their own body like nobody else knows it. Jackie Crilly knew there was something wrong with him more than the cancer and nobody was listening to him.”