An inquest jury in Cork has recorded a verdict of death by medical misadventure in the case of a 40-year old GP who died after she underwent surgery for a brain haemorrhage.
The surgeon who conducted the operation admitted at the inquest that his decision to try to place a clip around an aneurism which Dr Niamh Long had suffered was probably wrong.
Another registrar who examined Dr Long the previous day and diagnosed that she was suffering from migraine also accepted that his diagnosis was wrong.
Dr Niamh Long, who was married with three young children, was from Douglas in Cork.
On 6 January last she was brought by ambulance to the emergency department of Cork University Hospital complaining of severe headache.
She was seen by Registrar in Emergency Medicine Dr Gergely Halasz.
Dr Halasz observed Dr Long over a number of hours before prescribing medication for migraine and discharging her. Today Dr Halasz said his diagnosis was incorrect.
The next day Dr Long was back at Cork University Hospital's emergency department after a GP she had seen raised serious concerns about her condition.
A CT scan showed she had suffered a large haemorrhage in one of the main arteries leading to her brain. She had a blood blister aneurysm on top of a section of artery that was diseased.
Consultant neorosurgeon Charlie Marks operated on Dr Long the following morning, trying to place a clip around the aneurysm, but the clip sliced through the aneurysm and punctured the artery.
Frantic efforts to repair the bleeding were unsuccessful and Dr Long died three days later.
This afternoon Dr Marks said his decision to clip the aneurysm was "probably wrong". He said he was sorry he made that decision and not an alternative one and he had to stick with that now.
After the jury returned a verdict of death by medical misadventure, Dr Long's husband Eoin Clifford described her as a wonderful wife and mother whose death had left a huge void.
The coroner Philip Comyn noted that Dr Long's family had consented to her organs being donated.
He said one man who had been on dialysis for three years had received a kidney while another man had undergone a liver transplant and both were doing well.
