A two-year-old boy who is now on “borrowed time” after a serious heart abnormality was allegedly not detected in a hospital ultrasound scan before he was born has settled a High Court action against the HSE.
Ollie Roche was six weeks old when he was diagnosed with complex congenital heart disease and his parents thought he could have life-saving surgery. Within 24 hours, however, they were told that it was too late for surgery and palliative care should be considered.
Oonah McCrann, counsel for the boy, instructed by Cantillons Solicitors, told the High Court on Tuesday that Ollie, from Gorey in Co Wexford, had already defied medical expectations and was a remarkable little boy.
“He is living his best life on what is borrowed time,” counsel told Judge Leonie Reynolds.
The boy, along with his mother Leonie Kinch, father Sean Roche and his grandparents, was in court for the ruling of an interim settlement of more than €1 million in the case against the HSE over his and his mother’s care at Wexford General Hospital before and after his birth in November 2023.
It was their case that the heart defect should have been picked up in an ultrasound scan of June 2023, counsel said, and if identified Ollie would have been able to have surgery.
In a statement outside court, Ollie’s mother said that in a matter of six weeks, they went from the elation following Ollie’s arrival to learning that he had a serious heart condition, but believed it could be fixed with surgery, to then learning that it was now too late for the life-saving surgery.
Kinch said: “The shock and heartbreak of that moment have never left us. The heartbreak was compounded when, following our solicitor’s investigations, we learned that Ollie’s heart condition could and should have been diagnosed before he was born.”
Kinch said her son had defied all the odds and kept fighting, but “our family lives with the uncertainty of not knowing what the next day or even the next few hours may bring”.
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She said they “live in fear and trepidation that we may see the signs in Ollie of deterioration that we have been advised to be vigilant for. Our days are shaped by caring for Ollie and doing everything we can to give him the best quality of life.
“It is heartbreaking to live with the fear of what the future may bring. We try to make the most of our time together and take life day by day. Nothing can take away what Ollie and our family have been through, and what we have lost, but it means so much that Ollie has finally got justice.
“Hopefully lessons will have been learned that the mistakes in my pregnancy with Ollie won’t be repeated.”
It was claimed in proceedings that, following Ollie’s delivery, there was also a failure to perform accurately or at all a pulse oximetry screening, which detects critical congenital heart disease in newborns.
The HSE has admitted that by failing to obtain a clear four-chamber view of the baby’s heart and not identifying suboptimal ambiguous images for follow up, the assessment conducted by the June 27th, 2023, scan in Wexford General Hospital was incomplete and fell below the standard of care expected.
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It further admitted that the failure to identify the baby’s cardiac condition antenatally had adversely affected his survival rate into early childhood years.
The HSE contended that Ollie’s diagnosis of complex congenital heart disease would have adversely affected his life expectancy beyond mid-childhood, notwithstanding the failure to identify this diagnosis antenatally.
Approving the interim settlement, the judge wished Ollie well and hoped he continued to thrive. The case will come back before the court in 2029.