A Simple Question? - The hospital staff went rogue

Why was my father put under the care of a respiratory consultant at St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny when he did not have a respiratory disease or any symptoms of a respiratory medical condition on admission in early December 2022?

The hospital staff went rogue. 

Shortly after my father was admitted to St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny in early December 2022 following a fall and an injury to his leg – see my post titled: “A Fall and an Injury” I telephoned the hospital and was told by reception that my father was in Surgical 2 Ward.  Therefore, I telephoned Surgical 2 Ward and the ward reception clerk answered.  He promptly told me that as the ward was a nurse down, the other two nurses were “trying to get the dinner out” and both were too busy to speak with me but he would ask one of the nurses to telephone me back. 

I was concerned that the nursing staff were “trying to get the dinner out”.  Were there no catering staff at the hospital to do this task?

No one returned my call and therefore, I rang Surgical 2 Ward again in the afternoon where I spoke once again to the ward reception clerk who told me that one nurse had called in sick that day and now one nurse was on her break, so the only other nurse on the ward (called “Liz”) was too busy to speak with me but he would ask her to telephone me back later. 

Speaking to the ward reception clerk was like trying to get through a brick wall, he was no help at all and I was finding it impossible to speak with a medically trained person.  There appeared to be no system in place for next-of-kin to find out how their loved one was doing or who to direct questions to. 

No one returned my call and therefore, I telephoned Surgical 2 Ward again three days later and did manage to speak briefly with nurse “Liz” who told me that my father was well and would be a few days on antibiotics and then home.  Phew, I was relieved that my father did not need to stay in hospital for long.

Two days after that I telephoned Surgical 2 Ward again, this time in the late afternoon and the ward reception clerk was off duty which allowed me to speak directly to an extremely helpful nurse who told me that sadly my father had tested positive for MRSA on his leg wound that day and that they had put him on steroids.  The nurse confirmed that our father did not have MRSA on admission and it had only showed on the test today.  This was six days after his admission to that hospital and was hospital acquired MRSA.

As the nurse was a good communicator and showed understanding, and as I was concerned that the hospital would covertly inject my father with a “Covid-19 booster”, I explained to her that our father had already had two Pfizer Covid-19 injections and did not want any more and that the injections were not safe and effective and were actually causing harm.  The nurse quietly said to me that she was aware of that and explained that a few people she knew had died after receiving the Covid-19 injections!  She sounded very worried about that.

The nurse went on to tell me that my father was under the care of consultant Dr Brian Canavan. 

I now had the name of a consultant and researched his area of medicine.  I was shocked to find that Dr Brian Canavan was a respiratory consultant at St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny.  Why was my father put under the care of a respiratory consultant at St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny when he did not have a respiratory disease or any symptoms of a respiratory medical condition on admission in early December 2022?

I telephoned the hospital reception the next morning to ask to speak with Dr Brian Canavan, Respiratory Consultant and was told that consultants do not speak with next-of-kin and I was given Dr Brian Canavan’s secretary’s telephone number.

I immediately rang Dr Brian Canavan’s secretary who was extremely unhelpful and curt.  I said I was concerned about my father’s care at the hospital as he had now tested positive for hospital acquired MRSA and wanted to speak directly with Dr Brian Canavan his named consultant.  The secretary wanted to know more about why I was concerned and I asked: “Why was my father put under the care of a respiratory consultant when he did not have a respiratory disease or any symptoms of a respiratory medical condition?”  Immediately, the secretary got extremely defensive and told me that it would not be possible to speak with Dr Canavan and that doctors do not speak with next-of-kin on the telephone.  However, she would pass on the message that I wanted to speak with a doctor from that unit but it was unlikely that one would telephone me.  I politely insisted that I wanted an answer to that question, so she slammed the telephone down on me in such a way that my immediate thought was that she had been asked that question before! 

Following the secretary slamming down the telephone on me and my now raised suspicions, I immediately telephoned the secretary’s number another two times and both times she disconnected the telephone call without speaking, as I believe she could see my number flash up on her telephone screen.  Therefore, on my third attempt I telephoned her from a different phone and she immediately answered which I believe was because she thought it was not me.  I asked her to explain to me why had she had slammed the telephone down on me and not answered my other two calls and appeared to only answer this call because it was from a different number.  She immediately slammed the telephone down on me once again and this raised my suspicions even further.  I now sensed that my father was in grave danger at that hospital, that things were not right at the core.

The next day as I had not been contacted by any doctor from the unit, I telephoned the Surgical 2 Ward again and spoke with the ward reception clerk who said he could not answer my question and that he would bleep a doctor to telephone me.  No doctor from the unit ever got in touch with me and I never got one doctor to answer my question.

During this time, I had managed to speak directly with my father through video call.  Shortly after the telephone incident with Dr Brian Canavan’s secretary, I video called my father and was delighted that he answered.  He was sitting in a chair beside his hospital bed, fully dressed.  He said that he could not understand why they were keeping him in hospital for so long, it was now seven days since he was admitted.  I did not tell him about the MRSA he tested positive for the day before, as I did not want to worry him.  He was aware that they now had him on steroids but was very keen to leave the hospital and go home.

My father then went on to tell me that a hospital porter had taken him for an x-ray by putting him in a wheelchair without a blanket to cover him and wheeled him from the hot hospital ward, down a freezing cold drafty corridor and then left him sitting in the freezing cold drafty corridor outside the x-ray room.  The porter knocked on the x-ray room door and then walked off and left my father there alone freezing cold and sitting in a draft.  After some time, the x-ray door opened and my father was wheeled in by the radiologist and had his x-ray.  The radiologist then wheeled my father back outside the x-ray room door and left him there in the freezing cold drafty corridor.  It was some time before the hospital porter returned to collect my father and wheel him back to Surgical 2 Ward.  Shortly after this incident my father began to feel that this had affected his chest and he had caught a chill.

Eventually, through much effort on my part I managed to have a brief telephone conversation with Ms Helen Butler the Director of Nursing who said she could not answer my question and therefore, now extremely concerned and beginning to panic I found the contact details on the HSE website of the following people listed as their complaint’s contacts:

I put my concerns in writing as per the following email which I sent to Ms Anne Slattery, General Manager and Ms Helen Butler, Director of Nursing at the hospital on 16^th December 2022:

Neither Ms Anne Slattery, General Manager nor Ms Helen Butler, Director of Nursing responded to me.  What they actually did was to forward my question down the ranks to Ms Alison Mulloney, Patient Liaison Officer at the hospital, who as you can see from her email response below dated 16^th December 2022, attempted to give me the run around and stated that only the “named next of kin” (as per Dr Sonia Culda, my father’s GP) “will be in a position to raise this query, by speaking with the relevant staff on the ward.”  Was she referring to the same nursing staff who were “trying to get the dinner out”?  If she was referring to a doctor, that would have been impossible as doctors do not attend the wards during hospital visiting hours and family members were not permitted to attend the wards outside of stated hospital visiting hours.  It appeared to me that the staff of the hospital were willing to play games with patients’ lives rather than take responsibility and carry out the role they are being paid to do in a proper manner.

I was determined to get an answer to my important question and therefore, on 20^th December 2022 I sent the following email to Ms Anne Slattery, General Manager, Professor Garry Courtney, Clinical Director and Ms Helen Butler, Director of Nursing:

I did not receive a response to my email above dated 20^th December 2022.  I was now extremely concerned for my father’s safety and wellbeing at that hospital.

Therefore, on 27^th December 2022 I sent the following email to Anne Slattery, General Manager, Professor Garry Courtney, Clinical Director, Ms Helen Butler, Director of Nursing and Ms Alison Mulloney, Patient Liaison Officer as I was terrified that the hospital medical staff would covertly inject my father with a Covid-19 booster and I wanted to make them aware that I had put our father’s GP Dr Sonia Culda on legal notice in order to prevent her from injecting our father for a third time with a dangerous substance – see my post titled: “The GP”;

Following receipt of my email above dated 27^th December 2022 and the copy of the legal notice as described, I received an email from Ms Alison Mulloney, Patient Liaison Officer dated 30^th December 2022 where she referred me back to her email dated 16^th December 2022 (above) and stated the following:

It was my grave concern at the time and this has been confirmed through receipt of our father’s hospital medical records that our father by being placed under the care of the consultant physician on duty at the time of his first admission in early December 2022 namely; Dr Brian Canavan a respiratory consultant who did not refer our father to a specialist consultant trained in the specific area of clinical medicine which my father required, caused medical neglect and my father to suffer and led to his second admission to the hospital by ambulance on 27^th December 2022.

If St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny believe that it is appropriate for a respiratory consultant, who may also be trained in general medicine as Dr Brian Canavan appears to have been, to take full responsibility for a patient with other health conditions that require specialist knowledge and this is outside of their scope, then it is clearly medically negligent of the consultant to not refer a patient to a specialist consultant trained in the specific area of disease to which the patient suffered.  This I believe is what happed in the case of my father.

After my father’s second admission to the hospital by ambulance on 27^th December 2022, I wrote once again by email on 2^nd January 2023 to Ms Anne Slattery, General Manager, Professor Garry Courtney, Clinical Director, Ms Helen Butler, Director of Nursing, Ms Alison Mulloney, Patient Liaison Officer and All those concerned as I firmly believed my father was now in danger as a patient at St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny, and therefore, asked for the documentation to be provided to me in a speedy manner as follows:

I received the following email response from Ms Alison Mulloney, Patient Liaison Officer on 4^th January 2023 at 10.37 am where she incorrectly stated that a family member had met with Dr Kenneth Bolger, Consultant Physician, Respiratory Medicine recently and this procedure/process was explained.  The family member referred to has confirmed with me that the statement of Ms Alison Mulloney is incorrect and that it appears that Dr Kenneth Bolger misled Ms Alison Mulloney about this matter.  I note that Dr Kenneth Bolger had abandoned my father for four days while he took annual leave, not allowed any other doctor to assess our father’s condition during this time and only returned to the hospital that day 4^th January 2023.

I note that the email above from Ms Alison Mulloney states: “As St. Luke’s is a medium sized hospital”.  However, the HSE website as below states: “St. Luke’s General Hospital is a large acute general hospital”.  So, which is it; medium or large?

I received the email response above from Ms Alison Mulloney, Patient Liaison Officer on 4^th January 2023 at 10.37 am, the same day that Dr Kennet Bolger having abandoned our father for four days while he took annual leave, not allowed any other doctor to assess our father’s condition during that time, returned to work and appears to have misled Ms Alison Mulloney.  At mid-afternoon Dr Kenneth Bolger demanded and ordered that our father be injected with lethal doses of morphine and midazolam without informing our father, without informed consent and went entirely against our family wishes where we refused that such lethal drugs be given to our dear father.  Our family have evidence and are of the firm opinion that this action was carried out by Dr Kenneth Bolger with criminal intent, that he intended to end our father’s life.  He euthanised our father.  Involuntary euthanasia is illegal and usually considered murder.

On our father’s first admission to the hospital in early December 2022 he was swabbed with PCR which they state they used to find the coronavirus “SARS-CoV-2” which they incorrectly refer to as “Covid-19”.  The laboratory swab result was negative. 

They kept our father in that hospital until he was swabbed with PCR on 18^th December 2022 and the result showed a positive result for the coronavirus “SARS-CoV-2” and then they discharged him home three days later; a vulnerable man as he was over the age of 80 years who had underlying health conditions.  They discharged our father from hospital on 21^st December 2022 without informing him or any of his family of the positive result of the swab or checking if it was a false positive or investigating the facts that may have led to the positive result - see my post titled: “PCR – (Polymerase Chain Reaction)”.

It is tragic that on our father’s second admission to St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny by ambulance on 27^th December 2022 he was put under the care of Dr Kenneth Bolger who misdiagnosed our father’s condition, mistreated our father, abandoned him for four days and then euthanised our father.  Involuntary euthanasia is illegal and usually considered murder.

I never did receive a satisfactory response to my simple question!