THE PARENTS of a young man yesterday expressed “upset and hurt” at the treatment and care which their son received at a Drogheda hospital, at the conclusion of an inquest into his death.
Mark Haran (23), Moorechurch, Julianstown, Co Meath, suffered a sudden collapse at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, Co Louth, in the early hours of April 3rd, 2008.
The young man, who displayed signs of brain damage with fixed and dilated pupils, was rushed by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital, where he was pronounced brain dead the following morning.
An inquest into his death at Dublin City Coroner’s Court, at which a verdict of death by medical misadventure was recorded, heard of a series of “communication breakdowns” between doctors at the hospital over the course of Mr Haran’s two admissions.
Mr Haran, a business graduate from DIT in Aungier Street who had recently returned from travelling though eastern Europe and South America, had been admitted to the Drogheda hospital on March 23rd, 2008, with abdominal pain and complaints of headaches, nausea and vertigo. He was discharged on March 28th on the basis of an MRI scan which doctors believed was “essentially normal”. When readmitted on April 2nd, his condition had “significantly deteriorated”.
Mr Haran suffered a respiratory arrest at 5.12am the next morning.
A postmortem found he died of raised pressure in the brain (intracranial pressure) secondary to hydrocephalus (water on the brain) with compression of the brain stem. No cause for the hydrocephalus was established.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell told the inquest there was clear evidence of a breakdown in communication. “On evidence there appears to have been a breakdown in communication in relation to medical and radiological matters on Mark’s two admissions,” he said.
“The general impression is it seems the clinicians viewed the MRI scan as either essentially normal or as normal with minor abnormalities. There seems to have been a fundamental breakdown in interpretation,” he said.
The circumstances took Mr Haran’s death out of the realm of natural causes and he recorded a verdict of medical misadventure.
Solicitor for the Drogheda hospital John Gleeson said it accepted the verdict of medical misadventure and accepted there had been a breakdown in communication.
The coroner endorsed the recommendations given in an internal HSE report and highlighted “the communication issues as being of particular importance in what happened to Mark”.
After the inquest, solicitor Fergus Minogue said on behalf of Mr Haran’s parents that they were pleased with the coroner’s verdict.
“We are glad that the inquest is over and that the coroner has found it fit to record a verdict of medical misadventure,” he said.