The husband of a woman who developed MRSA while in hospital and subsequently died, yesterday criticised doctors at a Dublin hospital for delays in the provision of information to an inquest into her death.
Thomas Doyle, husband of the late Patricia Doyle (47) of Rossmore Drive, Ballyfermot, said doctors at St James's Hospital, Dublin, had caused him and his family unnecessary grief and upset because of considerable difficulties in obtaining medical information about the circumstances surrounding his wife's death .
Speaking at a reopening of the inquest at Dublin City Coroner's Court, Mr Doyle said: "I'm concerned at the lack of respect to my family by doctors at James's. It's putting the family through an awful lot. It's disrespectful to the coroner too."
He also criticised a failure of staff at the hospital to inform the family that his wife, who died at St James's Hospital on January 18th, 2004, had contracted MRSA during her time at the hospital.
An inquest into Ms Doyle's death first opened in December 2005 and has been adjourned at least four times in the intervening period, according to counsel for the Doyle family, Brian Spelman.
Mr Doyle told the court yesterday that his wife, who had a number of health problems including chronic asthma, severe depression and blood clotting, died at her home on January 18th.
The pathologist, Dr Hala Rizkalla, who performed the postmortem, told the court Ms Doyle died as a result of a pulmonary embolism - the obstruction of a pulmonary artery by a blood clot, and respiratory failure in the context of long-term morphine therapy.
The inquest heard Ms Doyle suffered a pulmonary embolism in early 2003 and since that time had been taking the anti-coagulation drug, Warfarin.
It also heard that Ms Doyle had 0.88 micrograms per millilitre of free morphine in her blood at the time of her death, four times more than the toxic dose.
The coroner Dr Brian Farrell said he was now satisfied that Ms Doyle's death was not as a result of high-level morphine use, but from the lung obstruction and respiratory failure. Doubt had previously surrounded this issue.
Ms Doyle's GP, Dr John Dillon of Chapelizod Medical Centre, told the inquest that although Ms Doyle was on a very high level of morphine, which would be potentially toxic to someone who was never on morphine before, she had built up a tolerance to the drug over time and so the "dose was not high for her".
Ms Doyle had been taking morphine for back pain relief since August 2003.
She was first prescribed morphine patches and in early January 2004 she began taking a form of oral morphine - MRT - because the patches were not "holding the pain".
Dr Dillon told the court that back pain had never been a problem for Ms Doyle prior to her development of MRSA in hospital, which he said she contracted between October and December 2002.
The inquest will reopen on July 3rd.