Eve Cleary after 13 hours on a trolley in the A&E department of University Hospital Limerick wanted to go home because she was “tormented and in agony” and nobody was telling her anything, her father has told the High Court.
Barry Cleary was giving evidence in the family’s action against the HSE over Eve’s death five years ago.
Eve Cleary (21), from Corbally, Limerick, died in the early hours of Sunday, July 21st 2019, just over three hours after her discharge from UHL and two days after she fell and hurt her leg and went to the UHL A&E Department, where she spent 17 hours on a trolley in a corridor before getting a bed.
Her father told the High Court of a phone call at around 11am on July 20th, 2019.
Eve had been on a trolley in the hospital corridor since 10 pm the night before; had been seen by a doctor at 5:30 am on July 20th and had an orthopaedic review and was at that stage waiting for a CT scan.
He said Eve was very upset during the call which her mother put on speaker.
“She said she was tormented and in agony and nobody was telling her anything. She said ‘Mam I want to go home. Nobody is coming near me.”
Mr Cleary said his wife told Eve “she was in the best place,” and by the time they got back to the hospital she had the scan.
Mr Cleary on the sixth day of the action said Eve was brought to the UHL emergency department at 10 pm on Friday, July 19, 2019.
Her boyfriend stayed with her in A&E and Mr Cleary and his wife went home. He said he kept in touch with his daughter until he fell asleep at 3am.
He said he was shocked Eve was in hospital so long, and he thought by the next morning she would be coming home.
Mr Cleary said when they returned to the hospital Emergency Department on the morning of July 20th Eve was on a trolley.
“The trolleys were touching each other all the way up and down the corridor. There was nowhere to speak privately,’ he told Ms Justice Emily Egan.
Eve, he said, was “not herself" and was “so upset and in so much pain" and her leg from her toes up looked swollen and was “like a Christmas ham.”
Eve’s parents Barry Cleary and Melanie Sheehan Cleary and her sisters Kate, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Emma, and her brother Sean, all of Corbally, Co Limerick have sued the HSE over her death and for mental distress.
It is claimed that Eve was allegedly allowed to develop a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot in her vein, and that an opportunity had been allegedly missed at the hospital to put her on the anticoagulant Heparin on admission.
The HSE accepts a formal risk assessment in relation to blood clots was not done but has denied all other claims and does not accept the failure to carry out the risk assessment was a breach of duty.
An A&E expert on the Cleary side Dr Arv Sadana told the court the risk assessment should have happened at the time of the decision to admit Eve, which the Cleary side contend was around 8am on July 20th.
Counsel for the HSE told the court that UHL A&E on Saturday and Sunday is not open for non-urgent radiology. Counsel said in Eve’s case there was “an administrative step” to open up an arrangement so Eve could have a scan and not have to wait until Monday.
