Woman awarded €500,000 in case against hospital

A young Co Louth woman who suffers from an inflamed colon has been awarded more than €500,000 in damages by a High Court judge who found her illness was not properly treated or managed by Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, and the HSE.

Michelle Myles (24), Chestnut Grove, Tallinstown, Co Louth, who spent several months in an intensive care unit in 2000 after her bowel ruptured, had sued the hospital and HSE (formerly sued as the North Eastern Health Board), alleging negligence and failure of duty over their treatment of her colon condition.

The defendants had denied the claims. In a detailed judgment yesterday, Mr Justice John Quirke found that Ms Myles, who was under the care of consultant physician Dr Jeremiah Long at the hospital, had suffered "very serious injuries" and her care had "fallen short of the level of care, management and treatment required". The judge said there was "clear and serious negligence" by the defendants which caused a severe deterioration of her quality of life.

"On a number of occasions, Ms Myles was subjected to greater levels of distress, humiliation, degradation, discomfort and misery than would have been the case if her condition had been managed and treated by the application of general and approved management and treatment methods," the judge said.

He ruled that, on successive days in December 1999, the hospital was wrong not to admit Ms Myles when she was in severe pain. It had instead advised her to go home, and altered her medication. This was contrary to proper medical practice, the judge said.

The hospital had failed to properly treat her by not providing her with an appropriately qualified consultant physician when Dr Long was off duty while she was a patient at the hospital between April 29th and May 2nd 2000, he said.

The judge also found Dr Long and the hospital repeatedly failed to properly communicate and consult with the Myles family.

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times