{"id":204258,"date":"2025-11-28T05:24:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T05:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/204258\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T05:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T05:24:16","slug":"verdict-of-medical-misadventure-recorded-in-death-of-teen-niamh-mcnally-at-uhl-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/204258\/","title":{"rendered":"Verdict of medical misadventure recorded in death of teen Niamh McNally at UHL \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An inquest into the death of a 16-year-old girl at University Hospital Limerick<\/a> in January 2024 has recorded a verdict of medical misadventure.<\/p>\n

John McNamara, presiding coroner at Limerick coroner\u2019s court, said Niamh McNally<\/a>\u2019s death was a \u201ctragic and rare event\u201d that unfolded and led to a tragic outcome.<\/p>\n

Niamh was admitted to the midwest hospital on January 9th, 2024, after she began coughing up blood. She remained there for 14 days and was treated for a collapsed lung and pneumonia. She was discharged on January 23rd.<\/p>\n

The teenager, who had a congenital heart defect and scoliosis, was readmitted to hospital on January 29th by ambulance – once again coughing up blood. <\/p>\n

She suffered a cardiac arrest that night and died. <\/p>\n

A postmortem determined the cause of death as asphyxiation second to pulmonary haemorrhage which was \u201cmost likely\u201d caused by the \u201cerosion of a collateral artery\u201d of the heart.<\/p>\n

Mr McNamara said \u201closing a child is obviously the deepest of tragedies\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve no doubt Niamh\u2019s memory will continue to live on in all who loved her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking outside of Kilmallock courthouse on Thursday afternoon, Carolyn O\u2019Neill, Niamh\u2019s mother, said she hopes \u201cno other family has to go through what Niamh experienced in UHL\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were missed opportunities that could have been taken into account, especially for cardiology,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they actually acted upon doing a proper cardiology checkup on Niamh, she would be alive today, that I\u2019m convinced of.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Mother of Niamh McNally (16) recalls her death in Limerick hospitalOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Describing her daughter, Ms O\u2019Neill said Niamh was a \u201clovely girl\u201d who was \u201cjust coming into her own\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was turning into a beautiful woman. She loved everything, she was such a fighter, she was fantastic. She never let her disability get in the way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"NiamhNiamh McNally’s uncle Peter O\u2019Neill, mother Carolyn O’Neill and grandfather Clem O\u2019Neill with family friend Naomi Cleary Graham at the inquest. Photograph: Shauna Bowers <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Neill said her husband died almost 12 years ago, and so she was \u201cmother and father\u201d to her daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to call her my sticking back; she was continuously just glued to me. We were just so close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to Mr McNamara\u2019s verdict, across the two days of the inquest, images of the quantity of the blood Niamh was producing were presented to the various medical experts, all of whom agreed the quantity of blood was \u201csignificant\u201d. <\/p>\n

Niamh underwent three open heart surgeries as a child – aged 9 months, 18 months and at 8 years old – and underwent spinal surgery for her scoliosis. <\/p>\n

Her mother said she was doing well in relation to these diagnoses and doctors at UHL were made aware of her medical history. <\/p>\n

Damian Tansey SC, representing Ms O\u2019Neill, asked the medical experts why cardiology was not more involved in the teenager\u2019s care, given her medical history. <\/p>\n

The primary focus of her treatment was on the upper respiratory tract, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n

The inquest heard that Niamh\u2019s only interaction with cardiology was to determine whether she had infective endocarditis, which is a bacterial infection of the lining of the heart. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Dr Saadat Khan, the cardiology registrar, said there was \u201cno medical signs of infective endocarditis\u201d and he was not asked to examine any other potential cardiac complications.<\/p>\n

Mr Tansey said the family is \u201ctroubled\u201d that so much emphasis was put on respiratory concerns, and they did not consider wider diagnoses such as the heart. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, Dr Brian Casserly, a respiratory consultant at UHL, agreed the failure to recognise the source of Niamh\u2019s symptoms being the heart is a \u201cfailure\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is undoubtedly a failing. I would agree absolutely there was too much emphasis put on a pulmonary cause of the problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added some tests on the heart were carried out – including an echo and CT scan – but said these did not point to heart-related concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should have been a bigger focus on cardiology,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The inquest opened on Wednesday with an apology from the Health Service Executive<\/a> (HSE) for the \u201cfailings\u201d that ultimately led to the Limerick girl\u2019s death. <\/p>\n

The organisation said it was implementing 15 recommendations made by an independent review team following Niamh\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Neill, in her evidence on Wednesday, recalled harrowing details of the hours leading up to her daughter\u2019s death, including the teenager saying \u201cmammy, I can\u2019t breathe\u201d moments before she died.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ministers and key hospitals clash over financial controlsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inquest into the death of a 16-year-old girl at University Hospital Limerick in January 2024 has recorded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,2450,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,7586],"class_list":{"0":"post-204258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-health-service-executive-hse","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-university-hospital-limerick"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115625660906889679","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}