The family of a man who died from sepsis two days after he was discharged from hospital while seriously ill has said they hope their father's story will help others.
Michael Cuddihy, 76, died suddenly in November 2023, 11 months after the death of Aoife Johnston, which led to a major review of management practices and care in University Hospital Limerick.
At the time of Mr Cuddihy's death, an internal review into the care given to Ms Johnston was ongoing. It later found the delays in her treatment breached national guidelines relating to sepsis.
Mr Cuddihy attended the UHL Emergency Department on 20 November 2023 but was discharged nearly 24 hours later and told he had a stomach bug. In fact, he had a serious infection of the bile duct caused by gallstones.
He was found dead at home two days later. A post-mortem examination showed the untreated infection led to sepsis.
At the High Court today, Senior Counsel Sara Antoniotti said while Mr Cuddihy was in the hospital overnight, abnormalities in his blood tests and spikes in his temperature were missed and he was discharged.
She said if he had been admitted to hospital he could have been treated with antibiotics but instead he was discharged and sepsis had overwhelmed his system.
An inquest into his death returned a verdict of medical misadventure and made seven recommendations to UHL concerning blood test protocols, staff training, communication and discharge plans.
Ms Antoniotti said Mr Cuddihy's wife Aine continues to profoundly grieve his loss. Mr Justice Coffey was told that Ms Cuddidy had now settled her case against the HSE. The details of the settlement were not made public and the case was before the court for ruling only.
Afterwards, Mr Cuddihy's daughter Anne said it was the "end of an extremely long, arduous and painstaking journey". However, she said there was no comfort because of the fact "that my Dad is gone".
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She added: "We went on this journey because we didn't want other families to go through what we have had to go through. We have watched other families say this before and people are living this horrible life, so if some good can come from this it would be fantastic, to hope that in some way Dad's story will be able to help somebody else. So, in that respect it brings us some level of comfort.
"But we miss my Dad tremendously, two and a half years on, we will continue to miss him, we will continue to mourn him and we will continue to celebrate his life because he was the most amazing person who ever lived."
Mr Justice Coffey expressed his sympathy to Ms Cuddihy and ruled that the statutory sum of €35,000 should be divided equally between his nine dependents including his wife, brother, adult children and grandchildren.
