'Niamh would be alive if she'd got proper treatment'

Mum's grief at inquest of 16-yr-old after 'medical misadventure' verdict

- BY DAVID RALEIGH

A CORONER has returned a verdict of “medical misadventure" in the death of a 16-year-old girl at University Hospital Limerick.

The inquest into the death of Niamh McNally on January 29, 2024, heard there were “so many missed opportunities” in her care.

Speaking outside court yesterday, her mother Carolyn O'Neill said: “She would be alive today if proper cardiac treatment was in place.”

Niamh died of ‘asphyxiation’, after suffering cardiac arrest, having suffered a “pulmonary haemorrhage which most likely resulted from an erosion of a collateral artery into the respiratory tract”, a postmortem found.

Niamh, from Ardykeohane, Bruff, attended UHL on January 9 gasping for breath and coughing up blood. The hospital was aware she had a history of congenital heart disease.