The State Pathologist has told a jury that an elderly man allegedly poisoned by a nurse died of heart failure not related to an injection he received from the accused.
Dr Marie Cassidy said John Gethings's death was due to heart failure due to lack of blood supply to heart and heart muscle, narrowing of the blood vessels and heart enlargement.
She was giving evidence in the trial of Noreen Mulholland (35), now living in Park Road, Portadown, Co Armagh, previously of Runabeg Close, Kildare, who has pleaded not guilty to four charges in relation to two elderly patients at Naas General Hospital in 2003.
Ms Mulholland denies assault causing harm to Mr Gethings (77), Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, or intentionally or recklessly administering Serenese to him without his consent in March 2003. She also denies assaulting Séamus Doherty (80), Naas, Co Kildare, causing him harm, or intentionally or recklessly administering Serenese without his consent in June 2003.
Orla Crowe, prosecuting, has told the jury that Mr Gethings died on March 2nd, 2003, but she has emphasised that it was not the State's case that Ms Mulholland was responsible for his death.
Dr Cassidy said she supervised the exhumation of Mr Gethings' body and carried out a postmortem. He had a 1.5 inches bruise in the muscle of his left buttock consistent with an intra-muscular injection given with a very long needle. A thin-gauge needle would normally be used for this type of injection so as to avoid bruising a patient in this way.
Dr Cassidy said there was no bruising on Mr Gethings's right buttock or on any other part of his body used as injection sites, such as the arms and the legs.
Dr Cassidy agreed with Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha SC, defending, that the bruise could be consistent with impact caused by a blunt instrument but accepted that its location and dimension suggested it was caused by an injection.
She further accepted that a 16- gauge needle could cause a bruise or might not cause a bruise. She would expect a white 16-gauge needle to have caused it because it had a longer tip and the thinner-gauge needles had shorter tips.
Dr Cassidy also agreed, after examining two thinner-gauge needles, that the tip of one was the same length as the 16-gauge while the tip of the second one was only a "little shorter".