Wexford General Hospital has apologised to the family of an elderly woman who died there earlier this year, saying it was not the level of standard it aims for.
It follows an internal investigation into complaints from the family that they were denied repeated requests for compassionate visits, and that the hospital wrongly recorded that a family member was present at her death.
The family raised issues about her standard of care, her deterioration and the visiting restriction for a critically ill patient.
They believed there was a profound lack of transparency, and a failure to inform them of the true extent of her illness.
Patient A was aged in her 80s and had been admitted in December last year and died in January this year at the hospital.
The report of the investigation, seen by RTÉ News, says that if the nursing staff had any indication that she was deteriorating, they would have informed the family and allowed them to come in.
It said that the hospital policy is to allow family visits if the patient is at end of life and that the duration of visits should be as flexible as possible.
It said that greater sensitivity and clearer communication should have been exercised when determining and explaining visitation allowances.
It also said it should have been clearer from the medical records that no next of kin was present when she died.
Patient A had a Do Not Resuscitate form signed.
The investigation report says she passed away unexpectedly.
The hospital said it was "very sorry for the upset caused" to Patient A and her family and also apologised for the fact that she was moved during her hospitalisation.
The hospital had been dealing with an outbreak of influenza, Covid-19 and infectious gastroenteritis.
It said it understood how upsetting and distressing such moves can be for patients and families.
Wexford General Hospital said that unfortunately due to current limitations of the hospital infrastructure, and the lack of single rooms, patient moves are sometimes unavoidable.
The hospital upheld the complaint and said that nurse management will discuss with ward staff the lessons from what occurred and that the complaint will be anonymised and used for end of life training of all staff.
It said it was committed to improving communication with service users and are engaged with the HSE healthcare communication programme.
