A CORONER may conduct an external investigation into the injuries caused to the body of a Strabane pensioner after her death, after Altnagelvin Hospital absolved itself of blame yesterday.
The family and their legal and political representatives remain unhappy with the response from the hospital and said many questions remain unanswered. It has now been agreed that Altnagelvin Hospital will seek advice about having an external investigation.
A post-mortem revealed that 78-year-old Maureen (Mary) McGinley sustained 32 fractures to her body. These fractures happened after her death in January.
Her sons and daughters yesterday met with hospital chiefs at Altnagelvin Hospital, where Mrs Mc Ginley died.
Accompanied by their solicitor John Fahy, MP Pat Doherty and MLA Dr Kieran Deeny, the family were too distressed after the meeting to speak with the media.
At that meeting, they were informed that the hospital had conducted its own internal investigation and is satisfied that the post mortem fractures sustained by the pensioner were "most likely the results of factors not associated with Altnagelvin Hospital".
Daughter Tina, after the three hour meeting, said they were just too distressed to speak.
Pat Doherty and Dr Deeny have spoken on behalf of the family. Both are unhappy with yesterday's outcome for the McGinley family.
Pat Doherty said, "During the meeting, family members and members of the delegation probed every aspect of the case in an attempt to get to the bottom of what happened.
"Unfortunately, the result of this in-house enquiry carried out by officials from Altnagelvin did not provide any conclusive explanations as to how these multiple fractures were sustained.
"And apart from securing an apology from the officials about the breakdown in communications with the family and sympathy about the ordeal that they have been put through, the McGinley family are still left with so many questions remaining unanswered."
The MP said he will now be writing to the Department of Health and the NIO, who are in charge of the day-to-day running of the Coroners Office, demanding that they jointly undertake a review into the all procedures that are currently in place.
He said those procedures have been shown, through the efforts of the Mc Ginley family, to be totally inadequate to command public confidence.
He said, "As part of such a review, I will be calling for the formulation and introduction of clearly defined guidelines and measures to provide assurance to relatives of the deceased that the bodies of their loved ones are treated with the utmost care, dignity and respect throughout the coronary service process as part of a wider review into how the centralization of Coronary Services in Belfast.
"This has served to exacerbate the grieving of so many families through delays in the return of their loved ones bodies and particularly because of the unsatisfactory weekend arrangements."
His comments have been echoed by GP and MLA Kieran Deeney.
He said the family still had many questions which remain unanswered.
"A hospital should not just wash its hands of someone when they die. Representations are now to be made to the Coroner for a complete inquiry from the moment of death to the post mortem, and the hospital has agreed to that.
"The Coroner must conduct an external thorough investigation."
He added," If a Post Mortem is required today a deceased loved one has to be moved to Belfast. This could mean being left in a Belfast morgue for three to four days, if death occurs at the start of the weekend.
"Then to compound or make matters worse it can be many weeks (up to 6) before the family GP receives the Post Mortem results so that he/ she can then share the cause of death and the Post Mortem findings with the bereaved family."
Dr Deeny says it demonstrates that Post Mortem services should be returned to our local hospitals, adding that Mrs McGinley's case highlights in a very disturbing way the obvious deficiencies in post mortem services.
In a statement from Altnagelvin yesterday, a spokesperson said, "The Trust is pleased that the family accepted its invitation to meet to discuss this most distressing situation and we offered our sympathy to them.
At the meeting, the results of our investigation into this matter were shared with the family and every opportunity was given to them and their representatives to ask questions and obtain answers.
Altnagelvin staff treat all bodies with the utmost respect. We therefore wanted to be very sure, by a rigorous investigation of this matter, that there were no failings in our systems and in our handling procedures. As part of our investigation, we sought advice from the pathologist, who works for the Coroner and who carried out the post mortem examination of Mrs. McGinley. We are satisfied that the results of our investigation indicate that the post-mortem fractures sustained by Mrs. McGinley were most likely the result of factors not associated with Altnagelvin Hospital.
We recognise that the family is not satisfied with this and still has concerns. The family has agreed that a further external investigation may be beneficial and, to this end, we will, as also agreed, jointly seek advice from the Coroner.
Altnagelvin Area Hospital is a vital part of the community and it is important that it has the confidence of the community. We will therefore continue to work with the McGinley family to help them as much as possible to bring about a resolution to this sad and distressing situation."
