Hearing that Bryonny would have been saved if treated differently felt like hearing she had died all over again
THE grief-stricken mother of a young woman who died following a ‘catalogue of failures’ at the Regional Hospital Mullingar has said hearing her daughter ‘would have been saved’ if treated differently was like being told she had died again.
Equestrian enthusiast Bryonny Sainsbury, 25, from Newtown Forbes, Co. Longford, died after suffering a serious brain injury when she was kicked in the head by a horse in August 2021.
Her family claim staff at the hospital in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, repeatedly insisted her condition ‘was not bad enough’ to be transferred for a specialist treatment at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. When she was eventually transferred three days later, Bryonny was declared brain-dead and died on August 31, 2021.
Earlier this month, the Dublin Coroner’s Court returned a verdict of medical misadventure in relation to her death.
Bryonny’s parents Alison and Chris said hearing doctors say that ‘she would have been saved’ if things had been done differently was like being told she was dead all over again.
Alison told Pat Kenny on Newstalk: ‘It is almost the worst thing that could have been said, because it’s almost like being told that your daughter died again – and he never said might have been saved, he said she would have been saved.’
The inquest heard that no blood tests, which could have detected critically low sodium levels in the patient, had been carried out on Bryonny for over 48 hours in Mullingar, despite staff in Beaumont advising that they should be taken regularly. They also advised they should be informed of any change in her condition.
Meanwhile, two consultants working at the Mullingar hospital each presumed the other was responsible for the patient’s care.
Mr Sainsbury added that when his daughter’s condition began to seriously deteriorate, the nurse couldn’t get her doctors to come.
‘Bryonny was by then pulling blankets off other people’s beds – she was disorientated. She didn’t know what she was doing,’ her father said.
Mr Sainsbury said his daughter was ‘rolling around the bed in agony with her head’.
‘We had a job to keep her on the bed and then she would stand up, grab hold of me and bury her head in my chest and then just fall back on the bed,’ he added.
Mr Sainsbury continued: ‘At this stage, she had no head collar on or nothing and she was rolling around the bed in agony.’
Bryonny, who ran a hairdressing salon in Newtown Forbes, was taken to intensive care that afternoon. ‘They decided to take her to ICU when it was too late and they had a job to keep her on the bed walking down to the ICU because she was in so much pain,’ said Mr Sainsbury.
‘She was rolling around, holding her head and that’s the last voice of our daughter we got – of her screaming going down to ICU.’
A decision was made to send her to Beaumont Hospital later that day. However, doctors in Dublin told her parents that the outcome would not be good.
A consultant then called them into his office.
‘He said: “It’s not good news,’” said Mr Sainsbury.
‘And we said: “What do you mean it’s not good?”
‘He said: “She’s brain-dead, your daughter’s brain-dead.”
‘We said: “Well we’ll take her home and look after her” and he said: “No, you don’t realise, she’s on the machine and when that’s turned off, she’ll die.”’
The couple are now calling for the hospital in Mullingar to be held to account.
‘I mean, we’ve been talking about this and in any other industry they’d be struck off,’ said Alison. ‘There’d be consequences – that’s what we feel.
‘But it seems, if it’s something as serious as what our daughter went
‘Rolling around the bed in agony’
Condition ‘not bad enough’ for hospital transfer ‘There should be consequences’
through and what we’re going through as a family, it’s brushed under the carpet.’ She added: ‘There should be consequences for these people that are doing this to people.’ The heartbroken mother also said that she still expects to see her daughter every day. ‘Our lives will never be the same, ever,’ she said. ‘You still expect her to run in saying: “I’m hungry, Mum” and go to the yard, you know, go to the horses. Everything, you know, it’s just hard. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.’ Mr Sainsbury said her death has had a huge impact on everyone who knew her. ‘Her business was absolutely flying it, who knows where she would have been now, you know, and with the horses and all that, she had everything going for her,’ he said. It should never have happened and I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else, that’s for sure.’