Statement of HSE CEO following the conclusion of the inquest into the death of Aoife Johnston

The inquest which has taken place this past week has been another period in which the family of Aoife Johnston have experienced great distress, and this has been publicly visible to all of us.

On behalf of the HSE, I, again, would like to express our heartfelt sympathy to Aoife’s family and friends for the pain and suffering they experienced because of Aoife’s death while in our care.

I want to take this opportunity to restate for the record today our unequivocal apology to them, conscious that no words of mine will take away their pain.

I have noted the verdict and thank the Coroner for his careful attention to this tragic case. Over the last four days, we have heard great detail on the events surrounding this unnecessary death.

I will now take the outcome of the inquest, study the details of the transcripts and, together with the systems analysis report I received in December, add this to the information available when I receive the outcome of the independent review being conducted by retired Chief Justice Mr Frank Clarke I will consider next steps.

I know we have considerable work to do to ensure that the people of the Mid West, and the staff of University Hospital Limerick, have a service they can feel confident in and proud of, and we are working to that end. The details of this inquest will be very much in our minds as we do so.