Aoife Johnston inquest hears consultant 'never declined' to come into Limerick hospital
The late Aoife Johnston died after experiencing a 12-hour wait at the emergency department in UHL in December 2022.
A consultant in anaesthesiology has told an inquest into the death of Aoife Johnston at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) that he did not decline to come in on the night she was admitted.
Dr Fasih Khan gave evidence on Wednesday at Kilmallock Coroners Court where the inquest into the 16-year-old’s death entered its third day. The Co Clare teenager died after experiencing a 12-hour wait at the emergency department in UHL in December 2022.
The inquest, before Coroner John McNamara, has heard of chronic overcrowding on the night Ms Johnston was referred to the emergency department by her GP and of hospital and medical staff describing it as a “warzone”.
Since Monday, medical staff have claimed that two consultants were contacted to help the staff but that one declined and the other came in for a couple of hours. Giving evidence, Dr Khan said he did not decline to come into the hospital that night.
Damien Tansey, senior counsel and the solicitor representing the Johnston family, said a medic had charted that Mr Khan had declined to come into the unit. “Were you asked to go, and did you decline?” he said.
Mr Khan replied:
Mr Tansey pointed out that Mr Khan’s name had been written in Ms Johnston’s chart stating he was contacted but declined to come in. Mr Khan said: “I never declined at the time, and we have discussed it on multiple times when she was in casualty and in the intensive care unit.”
Mr Tansey then asked him who helped him prepare his statement and Mr Khan said Paula Murphy, who works in risk assessment. He said: “I am not UHL hospital. I cover the emergencies in the hospital. I do my on-call commitments in theatre and in ICU. I am a St John’s Hospital person."
Mr Khan said he was unsure that he had the same report as the one Mr Tansey was referring to. Mr Tansey asked him if he was given the chart from UHL and said “you must have come across this, it’s suggesting twice in this chart that you declined to come in”.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” said Mr Khan. “I did not see this before”. He was then asked to get the chart that he was given to help him prepare his statement and Mr Khan left the witness box for a few moments before returning with some documents which he gave to the coroner.
“I can’t put it any further,” said Mr Tansey. “It appears in the chart, and it might be doing you a grave injustice, it appears in the chart twice that you were asked to attend, and you declined.”
The legal teams were asked to move on from the statements and Mr Tansey said Mr Khan might follow up the claims made in the reports. Mr Khan said by the time he had seen Ms Johnston at 9pm she was “deteriorating”.
Earlier, the inquest heard Assistant Director of Nursing, Patricia Donovan, was on duty on the night of December 17, 2022, and has been at the hospital since 2017. She said she was not involved in the clinical care of Ms Johnston, and she was not a patient who was brought to her attention that night.
She described a huge issue with staff shortages. There were five staff nurse deficits on the night of December 17 in the emergency department and she arranged some redeployment of staff, she said.
There were 191 patients that night and 153 when she took over. Ms Donovan said the hospital was under huge pressure that night and that she had contacted her superiors to highlight the overcrowding they were experiencing.
Wiping away tears before she finished in the witness box, she said Ms Johnston's death “has impacted hugely on all of us, those that still work in the department and the hospital and I don’t understand your pain. I hope I never have to, and I am very, very sorry".
