A boy left with severe, life-long disabilities following a string of failures at Portiuncula Hospital has been awarded €2.4m in damages.
Four-year-old Eoghan Dunne, from Tullamore in Co Offaly, was admitted to the hospital on 3 August 2012 following a GP referral, suffering a fever, shortness of breath, and lethargy.
It is understood the child was in “severe respiratory distress” while under observation at the hospital, and was shown to have an abnormally high heart rate. Eoghan, who was 11 months at the time, would be transferred to Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin some 12 hours later.
According to the medical report, he would go on to suffer septic shock and later experienced cardiac arrest.
The child was left with major neurological damage, and spent six months in hospital. He is now visually impaired, cannot walk or talk, and will require 24-hour care for the rest of his life.
The family’s legal team argued that Eoghan should have been given antibiotics when first admitted, and also stated that HSE’s guidelines on sepsis were ignored, and highlighted a lack of ‘appropriate’ staff to care for Eoghan.
It is understood that the interim settlement of €2.4m covers the next four years. The case will be reviewed in July 2020.