A HOSPITAL patient who fractured his leg after falling while attempting to get out of a wheelchair has begun an action for damages in the High Court alleging failure to tell him either to remain in, or how to get out of, the wheelchair.
Patrick O’Halloran (65), a retired surveying technician of Railway Cottages, Kilsheelan, Co Tipperary, told Mr Justice Vivian Lavan yesterday no one had told him to remain in the wheelchair and he had not been instructed as to how to get out of it.
The defence deny liability and plead Mr O’Halloran was told to wait in the wheelchair as this was standard practice when a patient was being conveyed to a particular area of the hospital.
In evidence, Mr O’Halloran said he was a renal transplant patient at Beaumont Hospital on December 18th, 2001, where he was brought for an ultrasound scan on his kidney. He said he was brought down in a lift by the porter and left on his own in a waiting area. He said he had decided to sit on one of the fixed chairs beside the door as nobody had told him to remain in the wheelchair. When he got out of the wheelchair, he caught his left leg in it and took about three hops to see if he could get out. He could not and he fell over on his left hip fracturing his leg.
It is claimed the foot flaps on the wheelchair must be taken out of the way before any such manoeuvre is undertaken and Mr O’Halloran said nobody told him how to get out of the wheelchair. Nor was he told to remain in it, he said. As a result of the fall, he had to remain in the hospital for 10 days over the Christmas period and was discharged on crutches.
He returned to work three months after the incident but felt a tightening in the thigh above the knee and had difficulty walking. He retired last June.
Charles Meenan SC, for the hospital, said a porter would give evidence that while he did not recall bringing Mr O’Halloran to the ultrasound department, it was his invariable practice to tell the patient to wait and that somebody would be out in a few minutes.