A High Court judge has rejected a woman’s claims that she was crying when asking a consultant cardiologist to stop as he was carrying out a pacemaker insertion procedure on her.
Mr Justice Paul Coffey said Eileen Tynan (68), formerly of Tivoli, Co Cork, now living in Spain, “did not cry in an audible, intense and emotional way during the procedure, nor did she cry inconsolably at its conclusion or on the ward”.
Ms Tynan had told the court she felt she was “being ripped open” and was in “terrible, terrible pain” during the day procedure. She also claimed she felt the doctor was not listening to her “or my pleas for help”.
The judge said he preferred the evidence of the consultant cardiologist to that of Ms Tynan when he dismissed her action for negligence against him and a hospital.
Ms Tynan sued Bon Secours Health System, with registered offices at College Road, Cork, and consultant cardiologist Dr Heiko Kindler, of the Cork Clinic, Western Road, Cork, over the procedure carried out at the Bon Secours Hospital, College Road, Cork, in July 2018.
She claimed there was a failure to provide adequate anaesthesia or analgesia for the pacemaker. She alleged she suffers from PTSD and adjustment disorder as a result of the 53-minute day procedure under local anaesthetic. The claims were denied.
Mr Justice Coffey said between the two conflicting accounts of the procedure he found Dr Kindler’s evidence was “not only more internally coherent and consistent but also better aligned with the general body of evidence in the case”.
He made findings of fact, on the balance of probabilities, including that the anaesthesia and analgesia provided to Ms Tynan were sufficient to prevent avoidable pain resulting from physical trauma.
The judge found Ms Tynan was actively monitored throughout the procedure by the overseeing or “circulating” nurse and did not make repeated complaints of significant pain during it.
While she made a complaint at about 22 minutes into the procedure, the pain she reported was “unavoidable despite adequate and effective anaesthesia” and it was promptly relieved by further local anaesthesia and the administration of fentanyl, he said.
The judge found she did experience anxiety during the procedure, likely triggered by the pain she reported at 22 minutes into it, and it was likely further exacerbated and prolonged by an underlying susceptibility to anxiety of which Dr Kindler and the medical team were unaware. He found the onset of her anxiety was not caused by any act or omission by the defendants.
The judge said at the conclusion of the procedure, Ms Tynan’s presentation was of a patient who was mildly to moderately upset and tearful, with no indication that she warranted medical attention or pharmacological intervention.
Ms Tynan did not, at that stage, report experiencing any unaddressed pain during the procedure, he said. Nor did she, despite being asked about pain on seven occasions and having ample opportunity to do so, raise any complaints of pain at any time prior to her discharge from hospital later that day, he said.
He dismissed the claim.
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