Family lost husband, son due to negligence
€925k award as two die in space of 16 months
A WOMAN who lost both her husband and son in a 16-month period due to the failings of two different hospitals has said she feels ‘let down’ by the health service.
The family of Esther Lonergan yesterday settled two lawsuits against the HSE over the deaths of her 74-year-old husband Eddie in 2013 and son PJ the following year – and won payouts totalling €925,000 after a three-year legal battle.
The High Court heard how Eddie Lonergan took his own life a day after he was discharged from the psychiatric unit of Kilkenny’s St Luke’s hospital in January 2013.
He had been admitted to South Tipperary General Hospital and spent several days there before being transferred to St Luke’s as an emergency psychiatric patient.
But he was discharged the next day and then disappeared from his home. He was found dead a day later – having taken his own life. His discharge from the hospital was ‘wholly unsatisfactory’ and should never have happened, the family’s lawyers told the court yesterday.
After lawyers for the hospital issued an apology to Eddie’s wife Esther and the family for the ‘shortcomings in his care’, Judge
‘We feel let down by the HSE’
Kevin Cross approved a €25,000 award for his wrongful death.
Sixteen months later in May 2014, Eddie’s 39-year-old son PJ died of a heart attack one day after he was wrongly discharged from the Emergency Department of South Tipperary General Hospital.
He had been suffering from myocarditis, an infection of his heart muscle, which was established through an initial ECG test, the court heard. But he was discharged after a second test showed a slight improvement. The following day, he died at home from a heart attack.
PJ’s own son, Mark Lonergan, sued the HSE over his father’s death.
According to some medical experts, PJ would not have had a heart attack the following day if proper treatment had been given in the hospital, the court heard.
The hospital yesterday apologised in court for the ‘shortcomings in the care of PJ Lonergan’ and offered its ‘sincere sympathy and condolence’ to the family.
‘We are really sorry,’ the apology, read to Judge Cross, concluded.
Approving a settlement of €900,000 for PJ’s son Mark, Judge Cross said he hoped the ‘closeknit’ family could move on with their lives.
Outside the Four Courts afterwards, a visibly emotional Mrs Lonergan, from Cashel, Co. Tipperary, said the apologies did ‘make an important difference.’ But she added: ‘We feel let down by the health board [HSE] and it would have been nice if the apology had come earlier rather than later.
‘To draw it out to this length of time is a bit much.
‘I think it takes from the apology, which is a pity really.
‘It happened twice to the family in 16 months.
‘I think they will have to learn something from this, somebody should be learning.
‘This shouldn’t happen to somebody else.
‘We’ve got this far, we have to move on. I’ve a great family around me.
‘And we will get on, we’ll do what we can. It’ll always be there of course, that maybe things could have been different.’
The family’s solicitor Cian O’Carroll said it was extraordinary what the Lonergan family had suffered through ‘separate acts of negligence in the health service’ in a 16-month period.
He added: ‘It shows the extent of the lack of care that continues.’