{"id":316222,"date":"2026-02-02T09:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T09:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/316222\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T09:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T09:59:11","slug":"family-of-limerick-teen-who-died-after-routine-surgery-feel-utterly-let-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/316222\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of Limerick teen who died after routine surgery ‘feel utterly let down’"},"content":{"rendered":"

THERE has been a call for a former CEO of UL Hospitals<\/a> Group to be investigated, following a medical council inquiry involving the death of a teenager. <\/p>\n

Jessica Sheedy from Caherguillamore, Bruff died on May 11, 2018, within days of an elective operation in UHL.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO:\u00a0Limerick mother who gave birth at home pleaded with paramedics to help her<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The young beauty therapist had a rare, but benign form of tumour in her abdomen and died three days after surgery from multiple organ failure.<\/p>\n

The surgeon involved in her care appeared before a Medical Council of Ireland inquiry to assess his fitness to practise medicine.<\/p>\n

The inquiry found that three allegations of professional misconduct and a further 10 allegations of poor professional performance, were all proven beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

Speaking in the D\u00e1il during Leader questions, Independent Ireland TD Richard O\u2019Donoghue called for a former CEO of UL Hospitals Group to come under scrutiny.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBy covering it up for eight years, how many other people have been seriously injured or have died, under that same management.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told the D\u00e1il: \u201cThere has to be accountability for the people that were overseeing the hospital at that time. We have to make sure justice prevails. There are no words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach M\u00edche\u00e1l Martin said that losing a young woman in such a way was \u201cabsolutely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt seems to me that person should never have proceeded with the operation, should never have been doing the operation. I can’t comprehend how that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach added that the loss of a young life from a straightforward operation \u201cshould never have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach acknowledged that under the leadership of Bernard Gloster, the HSE has changed its approach and made apologies in a more timely manner.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cEight years is far too long. Everybody knew what had happened here. It shouldn\u2019t take eight years for a family to get a sense of accountability in terms of what happened here. The objective is to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again, to some other young person, to some other patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to RTE news after the medical council inquiry, Jessica Sheedy\u2019s mother Ann said that they are devastated by the loss of their daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel utterly let down, not only by the arrogance of an incompetent surgeon, but by the healthcare system that allowed this man to operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as we’re concerned, he experimented on our daughter,\u201d Mrs Sheedy said.<\/p>\n

Holding back tears, she said: \u201cJessica was the light of our lives – that light went out on the 11th of May, we will never be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regional executive officer for HSE Mid-West, Sandra Broderick said: \u201cThere is no doubt that we failed Jessica and her family. The failure was one of significant proportions, with clear catastrophic consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Sheedy\u2019s death prompted further reviews of the surgical safeguards and clinical protocols at UHL to \u201censure that high-risk procedures are only conducted under the most stringent safety conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJessica\u2019s case represents a specific and avoidable failure in care. We accept full institutional responsibility for the catastrophic and irreparable harm caused. We want to reassure our community that this is not a reflection of our wider surgical and medical departments, in their ongoing commitment to patient safety and excellence,\u201d Ms Broderick added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE has been a call for a former CEO of UL Hospitals Group to be investigated, following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,892,18,13,14,6,60,19,17,11,12,1844,15,16,18857,5,7,8,7586],"class_list":["post-316222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-bruff","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-limerick","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mid-west","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-university-hospital-limerick"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116000454354603069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316222","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=316222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}