The parents of a baby who died after an operation to repair a congenital heart defect told an inquest yesterday they had been led to believe they had nothing to worry about.
Reece Doyle Byrne, Ballybrack, Co Dublin, died on March 9th, 2004, just six days short of his first birthday after an operation at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.
His father, Alan Doyle, told Dublin City Coroner's Court that medical staff had said there was a 98 per cent success rate for the operation. They were subsequently told he had suffered complications during the operation and had begun to bleed excessively.
After the operation, he was rushed back to theatre and died.
Mr Doyle said it was "unbelievable" how comfortable the parents had been made to feel about the operation, "how we were made to believe death didn't even come into it. We didn't think he was going to die."
The inquest heard how surgery had been carried out on Reece in 2003 to correct a heart defect. In that operation, a band had been put on his pulmonary artery.
Consultant paediatric cardiologist Dr Kevin Walsh told the inquest that before the second operation in 2004, the risks and benefits were explained to the parents.
The inquest heard angioplasty balloons were used during the second operation and a large tear in the blood vessel resulted. "It is a relatively rare occurrence but when it happens, because of the circumstances it happens in, it can be catastrophic," Dr Walsh said
Dublin City Coroner Dr Brian Farrell adjourned the inquest to hear evidence from the pathologist who carried out a postmortem.