‘Instead of organising a holiday, I was left picking out a headstone’

The heartbroken family of a Cootehill man, who suffered an untimely death, say they are satisfied a clinical review into his care at Cavan General Hospital (CGH) will now be carried out.

The popular father of three died on February 26 following massive organ failure and having spent three weeks in a critical condition at Dublin's Connolly Hospital.

They had, prior to Tony's death, being looking forward to a long summer as a family, with plans already made. For Teresa, there was the excitement of organising a surprise two-week Mediterranean cruise for her dad Tony and mum Andrea, their first ever. It would also have been her parents' first holiday abroad in more than a decade.
“Instead of organising a holiday, I was left picking out a headstone,” Teresa sums up. “What do you want on the headstone? What colour? What font do you want? What picture? That's what we we're left doing. Not asking where do you want to go on holiday? It's not right!”
Adorning the mantelpiece, taking pride of place in the cosy east Cavan home, are several framed pictures of Tony with family members in happier times.

Questions
His daughter Teresa sits in the corner of an L-shaped couch with mum Andrea sitting close by. Together they sift through a ream of documents pertaining to Tony’s treatment at CGH. The file, obtained following the Ballyfermot-native’s death, is punctuated with dozens of pink sticky notes and littered with underlinings. “They’re all the questions we have that we want answers to,” explains Andrea, Tony’s wife of more than 28 years. “As you can see we’ve quite a lot.”
An attending North-East Doc on Call physician raised concern over Tony’s blood pressure when attending their Cootehill home, as well as heart rate at 132bpm, according to medical records. The evening before he had gone to bed “unusually early”, had “picked” at a meal, and was beleaguered by a persistent coughing, bringing up white phlegm. 
Taxi driver Tony was admitted to the CGH’s Emergency Department triage team at 12.20am on February 2 by ambulance complaining of being “short of breath on exertion”. 
A record of his previous clinical history, as a smoker with Type II Diabetes, who had a Pacemaker fitted in 2016, was noted and an x-ray completed at 6.11am. It wasn’t until shortly after 4pm the following afternoon that hospital records show Tony being received into medical care and later diagnosed with a “viral infection”.
No detailed record of Tony’s care during that near 10-hour period was provided as part of the original file received by Tony’s family after his death. Selfies taken by a “bored” Tony, consigned to “a side room” in the hospital and sent from his phone show him attached to oxygen, which the family sought an explanation for.
“The worst thing I ever did was get Da a new phone for all the selfies he was taking. But, if it wasn’t for that, I don’t think we’d know anything about what sort of care he received,” states Teresa.
The family have also asked why a ‘Sepsis Screening Form’, shown by them to the Celt, and timed 1.15am, soon after Tony’s arrival at CGH, was “not completed”. It appears only partially filled in and not signed off. 
“If I did that I’d be sacked, gone! Kicked out the door,” suggests Teresa, who is a qualified healthcare assistant, and now runs her own business in Cootehill town. “We can’t understand why it wasn’t completed.”
Meanwhile a Medical Imaging Report from the x-ray, also seen by the Celt, details findings of an enlarged heart. This, it seems , was only officially signed-off at 12.50pm on March 3, almost six hours and five days after Tony’s eventual death.
Tony was discharged from CGH and returned home to Cootehill on Friday, February 2 with a prescription for Tamiflu. Andrea and Teresa both clearly remember “still having concern” over Tony’s health.
On Sunday night, February 4, while sitting in bed with Andrea watching television, Tony complained of struggling to breathe. “He was all over the place, he was delirious. He thought he was still in Cavan General Hospital, drooling from the mouth. He was hanging onto the window, just gasping,” says Andrea, recalling those frightful moments of helplessness.
An ambulance was called and whether “coincidence or a god send” notes daughter Teresa, it was the same paramedic as attended the house just three days earlier.
Both mother and daughter say they will never forget the “absolutely petrified” look on Tony’s face as emergency personnel shuttled him to the ambulance, arriving at CGH at around 4am on February 5.
“He was absolutely petrified. You could see it in his eyes. The last thing he said to us as they were bringing him to the ambulance was that he loved us. He never spoke again” Andrea tells the Celt.
“He knew, he just knew this was it, that this might be the last time he’d ever be there,” adds Teresa.
Arriving to be at Tony’s bedside, what Andrea witnessed she says still “haunts” her. Her voice chokes as she returns to seeing Tony, the t-shirt Teresa got him last Christmas cut from him, and her husband’s body hooked to medical diagnostic machines.
Tony was placed in an induced coma but medical records show it took several more hours before he was finally transferred to Dublin’s Connolly Hospital, another issue highlighted by his family. Had he been transferred sooner, the family question whether Tony’s spiralling condition might have been contained, and if so, he “could be in recovery today rather than six feet under”.
“There is every possibility that Da could have ended up at Connolly, but we think there were so many opportunities to pick things up that were missed,” states Teresa.
So serious had Tony’s condition developed that his heart stopped twice on the way from Cootehill to CGH, and three more times between CGH and Connolly, his family later found out.
He arrived at Connolly’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) suffering from respiratory failure and, as Andrea and Teresa soon learned, Tony’s body in the throes of fighting sepsis. They were  also told he contracted double pneumonia, blood poisoning, influenza type A and B and that his heart was now only functioning at around 15 per cent. The infection had taken its toll, ravaging Tony’s already weakened body.
Added to their growing catalogue of questions, the family have asked why, along with other records when Tony was transferred to Connolly, was there was no mention of his first admission to CGH on February 2.
There is also confusion as to exactly what details were provided in the discharge sheet from CGH. The family again move to thanking a “higher power” that at least the ambulance paramedic treating Tony previously was with him when being transferred to Connolly.
But despite the best efforts of medical staff at Connolly, each day brought fresh worry and a new complication for Tony’s ever worsening condition. By the end of the week he experienced multi-organ failure. His family say Tony’s lungs had given up, then his kidneys, followed by his liver. Tony would remain in ICU until his death.
“Gradually, part by part his body was shutting down,” explains Andrea, showing a picture taken the day before Tony died, lying in bed attached to various devices. 
“His poor body. Tony I think was still mentally aware of what was happening all around him. All he could do was look and blink. I feel he thought he had let us down. I’ve been with him 28 years, so I know what way his brain worked. The only thing Tony ever wanted to do in life was not to let his family down. He always protected us, no matter what.”
Teresa says she wouldn’t wish such a scenario on her “worst enemy”, and can only consider “what might have been”.
Tony Byrne passed away peacefully at 7am on February 26 due to multi-organ failure. Today, his remains are buried in a brightly lit plot on the verges of Palmerstown Cemetery, his family complying with Tony’s long-held wishes to be buried back in his home city. “He was a Dub through and through,” admits Andrea.
The family visit the graveside regularly but accept a current preoccupation with trying to get answers over Tony’s care is distracting them from truly grieving their incredible loss.

Indepenent review
The family have been involved with mediation with CGH. The family say they “will do whatever it takes” to get answers, and have engaged with patient advocacy group Patient Focus for assistance.
The independent review in to Tony’s care by the RCSI Group meanwhile is set to commence in the coming weeks.
For now, Andrea, Teresa, the rest of the Bryne family and Tony’s friends must wait. They miss the “simple things” in Tony’s absence.
“We were always close anyway [as a family] but I might say to Teresa, not even thinking, ‘if your dad was here’, and that sets off a whole cycle,” says Andrea trailing off. She misses desperately how Tony, when in bed, would tap his wedding ring of the nearby wardrobe if he wanted someone’s attention downstairs. It makes her smile when she thinks about it, but that happiness is short lived.
For daughter Teresa, what immediately comes to mind is that a month prior to Tony’s death, he had gotten excited after seeing his daughter looking up wedding dresses on the internet. 
“He wanted to go all out!” Teresa says, with mum Andrea adding: “He’ll never get a chance to walk her down the aisle. That sort of thing has been taken from her, and us.”
Everyday is therefore a reminder, for other daughter Anita and teenage son Aaron also, from the carefully tended to garden outside which Tony was so proud of, to various calendar events including anniversaries and birthdays.
“I honestly never want to think anyone else would have to go through anything like this, feeling as we do that what happened could have possibly been prevented,” says Andrea. Tony isn’t here now, he can’t defend himself, so we have to do this for him.”

 

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE HOSPITAL GROUP

The Celt submitting a list of question to the media agency for Cavan General Hospital in relation to Tony’s care and subsequent death and the questions that the family member’s have. The following statement was issued to the this newspaper yesterday by way of reply.