Four young women dead - catastrophic failures demand action on University Hospital Limerick now

“THESE girls were not listened to.”

Over the past four years, inquests in Limerick Coroner’s Court have heard harrowing evidence about the four young women pictured above who died because of “missed opportunities” at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

From 16-year-old Niamh McNally, from Bruff, gasping “Mammy, I can’t breathe,” to Leona Cusack, 33, from Shannon who died at the hospital a day after suffering a miscarriage, to Aoife Johnston, 16, also from Shannon, laying on a makeshift bed - two chairs pushed together - before her death, and Eve Cleary, 21, from Corbally who spent 17 hours on a trolley in the ED without a pillow or a blanket before she died - their stories speak of repeated failures, broken protocols, and a hospital system that did not protect them in their most vulnerable hour.

READ ALSO: 'Mammy, I can't breathe' - young Limerick girl said as she was vomiting up blood before she died

“When I was looking at Niamh’s mam, I could see myself in her. For families like ours, this is a very permanent loss,” Melanie Cleary said this week.

Ms Cleary is the mother of Eve Cleary, a 21-year-old who died in 2019 hours after she was discharged from University Hospital Limerick (UHL) and told to go home and rest.

Like the rest of the country, last week Ms Cleary watched on in disbelief as yet another mother - this time Carolyn O’Neill from Bruff - stood at the front of Kilmallock Courthouse to speak to the press after the inquest into her daughter’s death at UHL.

The verdict in Niamh’s case was medical misadventure.

“The solution is another hospital,” Ms Cleary told the Leader this week. “These girls were not listened to - Eve should have gotten Inohep [anticoagulant] injections, Niamh should not have been sent home and Aoife should have gotten the antibiotics when she needed them.”

Niamh McNally, a 16-year-old from Bruff, had been in hospital for 14 days coughing up blood and was treated for a collapsed lung and pneumonia. She had a congenital heart defect from birth and her heart, which was the source of huge volumes of bleeding, was not the focus of the diagnosis. She died six days after being discharged from hospital, when she presented with the same symptoms which had worsened and said “Mammy, I can’t breathe”, moments before she went into cardiac arrest.

Niamh died on January 29, 2024. She was 16.

Eve Cleary went into hospital with a leg injury and died just hours after she was discharged due to a blood clot. The 21-year-old spent more than 17 hours on a trolley before being sent home. Her family have still never received a formal apology for the failings, which led to Eve’s death.

Eve died on July 21, 2019. She was 21.

Leona Cusack, from Shannon who had undergone IVF, died one day after she had suffered a miscarriage when five weeks pregnant. UHL admitted a “breach of protocol” as she wasn’t given broad spectrum antibiotics.

Leona died on February 18, 2024 - less than one month after Niamh McNally died in the same hospital. Leona was 33.

Aoife Johnston, also from Shannon, should have gotten potentially life-saving broad spectrum antibiotics within 15 minutes of presenting to the hospital with suspected sepsis - these antibiotics were given 15 hours too late. She was lying across two chairs on a makeshift bed, as her parents pleaded for help, before she died from meningitis-related sepsis.

Aoife died on December 19, 2022. She was 16.

For Niamh McNally, Leona Cusack, Eve Cleary, Aoife Johnston and others, UHL was not the safe place it was meant to be - these young women did not come out alive. They never got to go home.

The Limerick Leader is very conscious that there are other people who have died in UHL, and while only four are highlighted here, that does not lessen the loss of any others. The four women featured on this front page have all been at the forefront of public attention in recent times with harrowing inquest evidence heard in each case.

Some of these untimely deaths have also been the focus of deeper investigations within the HSE or have been at the centre of High Court actions.

In a post on Instagram on Saturday, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill described the emergency department last weekend as “not too bad at all” while smiling for a picture with Bernard Gloster, HSE CEO.

READ ALSO: 'A profound tragedy': Verdict returned at inquest into death of girl, 16, at Limerick hospital

The inquest into Niamh McNally’s death heard that on the day she died, her mother had gone to the shops and on a video call could see her daughter coughing up huge volumes of blood.

When they arrived at UHL by ambulance, the teenager was admitted to the resuscitation unit, but was later moved out to the corridor.

Damien Tansey SC represented Niamh’s family and many other families at inquests involving UHL. He said last week: “In the letter of apology, they suggested that lessons will be learned.

"This is my third inquest in a little over 12 months in relation to adverse events in UHL and I’m not from Limerick, I don’t have an office in Limerick and this is my third time down here. Lessons clearly are not being learned.”