‘Not enough’ home support for woman who died in University Hospital Limerick, inquest hears
Christine Keogh, Prospect, Limerick, was just 28-years-old when she died on March 11, 2020 at UHL
THE MOTHER of a young woman who was pronounced dead at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) after a blood clot travelled to her lung, said she hopes her daughter found her unicorn when she got to heaven.
Christine Keogh from Byrne Avenue, Prospect in Limerick City, was just 28-years-old when she died on March 11, 2020 at UHL.
Ms Keogh was admitted to UHL on February 24, 2020 with seizures and the woman who had a background of epilepsy, intellectual disability and was overweight, was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
In ICU, she was intubated, ventilated and remained in the unit until March 8, when she was medically discharged.
Christine’s mother Christina told the inquest that her daughter was afraid that “you go in and don’t come out” of hospital and that she would panic with other people around or could get aggressive in an open ward.
While Dr Elijah Chaila reported being told she had walked with a zimmer frame, Mrs Keogh told the court that her daughter “never walked” from the time of her admission in the hospital.
Representing the Keogh family, barrister Liam Carroll BL, instructed by solicitor Michael O’Donnell, confirmed with witnesses that Ms Keogh had been given anticoagulant medication, but this was not continued at home.
Mr Carroll asked Dr Chaila why doctors would be concerned about anticoagulant for someone relatively young like Ms Keogh, and was told it was because she had suffered from a critical illness, had been intubated, and these factors combined with her high BMI and reduced mobility put her at high risk of a thrombotic event.
“At the time, the decision was made with the information I had just before discharge,” Dr Chaila told the court.
When asked about the development of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) - otherwise known as a blood clot, Dr Chaila said that in all cases symptoms “can vary depending on where it is, but most clots are asymptomatic and the patient may develop swelling of the legs and pain.”
The family maintained there was swelling in the legs, but Dr Chaila and other witnesses said this could have been attributed to fluid retention.
He added: “I didn’t suspect DVT.”
Speaking about the difficulties they experienced after being transferred home by ambulance, Mrs Keogh said they had no proper plan and it was “two people trying to move a 19-stone child and we couldn’t get the help we needed - we rang everyone.”
The coroner recognised that it was a struggle for the family who were reaching out to the health board and the hospital.
ICU nurse Katherine Foley remembered Ms Keogh as a “sincere, happy woman” and said she had expressed concerns about Ms Keogh’s mobility at home and how the family would manage her care at home.
She said she got the “impression that she (Mrs Keogh) would be able to manage her care,” but she didn’t know that the battery for the hoist at the home had died.
Limerick coroner John McNamara delivered a narrative verdict and said that the cause of death was acute cardiorespiratory failure due to a thrombotic embolism with a background of obesity.
He said that Ms Keogh “came from a very loving family who cared for her with the greatest of care one could hope for and they have suffered a terrible tragedy.”
Sympathies were expressed to Ms Keogh’s parents Christina and John and her only surviving sister Sabrina, who were all in Kilmallock Courthouse.
Speaking after the verdict, Sabrina described the inquest as being “not enough,” saying that Christine should still be alive.
“She should be here. We shouldn't be standing in this place, hearing ‘Christine Keogh, deceased’. We should be just watching her live her life, and becoming who she wants to be.
“I recently had a daughter and she's never going to meet her, she's never going to become an aunt.
“I don't think anything we heard today would change the fact that she's still gone, at the end of the day.”
“She was very bubbly, outgoing, she was always up for a laugh, like, especially with our neighbours, she'd always be slagging on them, or giving them the finger,” Ms Keogh’s mother said, explaining with a laugh that her daughter was so innocent and naive that she would hold up her index finger rather than the middle one.
She said her daughter was a “bit of a rogue” and was “never a negative person, she was just this bubbly, funny, caring, loving person that is truly and deeply missed by everyone that knew her.”
Mrs Keogh said that on the night she died, her daughter was struggling to breathe and she thought it was a seizure. Her daughter Sabrina did CPR, before her husband took over, and when the ambulance arrived, it was too late and she was pronounced dead at UHL.
The Keoghs lost two daughters in four years and Mrs Keogh said that Christine was so innocent that she thought she could just go to heaven, see her late sister Tonya and come back home.
“'I’ll just say hi to Tonya and come back down’, she’d say. She didn’t understand that when you go there, you don’t come back.
“She was too innocent for life.
“She’d always say, ‘when I go to heaven, I’ll find a unicorn’.”
May Christine rest in peace.