Medical records query

Hi all
Please move if in wrong thread
Hoping you can provide me with guidance,a close family member sadly passed away unexpectantly in 2019.
She was staying with me when I heard her fall , I rang an ambulance immediately they worked on her for a while then transferred her to hospital ( she had a cardiac arrest )
She was at the hospital approx 30 mins when the doctor advised us she had passed away . He returned 20 mins later to advise that they had discovered a pulse and she had not passed away .
she was taken to surgery then to have a stent put in . Over the next few days she was in icu they took scans of her brain and advised us there was no activity and the ventilator was turned off she passed away five days after her hospital admission.
we did ask at the hospital how they misdiagnosed her death but never got an answer.
A few months later we contacted the Irish patient’s association they advised us to request medical records and get back to them .It took another few months but we did get the records and sent them on to the IPA ( in October 2020) but despite numerous calls and emails they have not responded .
Can anyone recommend another path we can take . We Just want to know how this error occurred .
Are we justified looking for answers .
thanks for reading this long post
LN

Hi. You could lodge a complaint with the hospital and ask them to look at the clinical records with a view to clarifying the sequence of events that led to your relative's passing. They have a process whereby they have to look into it. Sorry for your loss.

Thank you for taking them time to reply, apologies for the silly question but who in the hospital could I contact

Really sorry about your relative passing away in such traumatic circumstances. It is very understandable that you wish to make a complaint and sometimes the easiest thing is just to phone the hospital and say you wish to make a complaint. The alternative is google HSE making a complaint and they have a form to be filled in.

Maybe reading your post it is not that you want to complain so much as to understand what happened in the emergency department and why you got such bad news and then the exact opposite news 20 mins later.

And hospitals are not keen to sometimes go into technical details as to why they someone is dead or not dead. I am no expert but usually there are checks to determine death by several staff members for reasons such as this case. To certify death the hospital has to go through a process, maybe heart beat or brain activity etc., I don’t know the details. But hearing this very close to death, can be traumatic for the relatives. As I understand in a heart attack parts of the heart dies and the heart stop beating, and the brain is starved of oxygen and starts to die as well, so even despite the best efforts of the hospital staff getting the heart going again may not be enough. And perhaps your relative was young which is why they felt it worthwhile to keep checking and then to operate to improve chances of life.

I know when my Dad passed away in hospital in 2019 he stopped breathing and the nurse checked for a pulse and agreed he was dead. Probably a doctor did another check, but my Dad was 100 so I would have expected no extreme measures even if they had detected further heartbeats. They probably would just had told us that he was actively dying, and it would take another while.

Again I am really sorry you had this experience, and the trauma of what happened is really staying with you. It may be that your questions to the hospital will answer your questions but you may find that the staff who were there on the day are no longer available to answer questions and that the doctors who may speak to you may be very defensive, and not help a lot.

Hi Lindanora, condolences on the loss of your loved one.

For a public hospital, I would recommend contacting the relevant complaints officer: https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/qavd/complaints/officers/hospital/

If it is a private hospital then they will also have a complaints and quality department.

In my experience it is vital to know what outcome you want before you make the complaint. Some people just want information (what happened and why), others want change (this should not happen to anyone else), others want compensation, others are not sure what they want and it may be part of their grieving process.

If you have a clear goal you are much more likely to get closure and satisfaction, otherwise it can drag on and add to the pain of bereavement. Complaint investigations can take time so you will need patience and perseverance but I have seen very good things come from constructive complaints.

(With Apologies and Sympathy). Looking coldly at the issue:-
1. You have asked the Irish Patients Association (IPA) to represent you. It will take them some time to collate information from the hospital and doctors etc before they can advise you. You gave them the Medical Records. This process began last October. Your issue at this point is with them and how long it will take them to reply to your questions.
2. You can stop the process anytime and engage in legal proceedings with immediate effect. Or you can go it alone dealing directly with Hospital Management.

If I were advising you, I'd keep dealing with the IPA until their findings are made known to you. Whatever way you wish to take, it will be time consuming and worrying.

Thank you to everybody who took the time to read and comment .
Clamball my condolences on your fathers passing . My family member was only 58 which is why they continued working on her ( I’m assuming ) .
Aribitron , thank you for the link I will take a look , in answer to your question the outcome I’m looking for is twofold first and foremost the obvious how could they call a death when there was a pulse and secondly what is in place to ensure this doesn’t happen to another family

thank you all again