A 48-year-old woman’s use of Lemsip may have contributed to her death as she was not aware it contained paracetamol, an inquest heard on Monday.
Colette Whittle from Kildare town died in hospital on August 3rd, 2016. She had been admitted for cancer treatment four days previously following detection of a lesion in her mouth.
The woman had a history of smoking, had cut down and was trying to give up, Dublin Coroner’s Court heard.
Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane described the cancer diagnosis as "very, very severe, with a poor outlook". It was diagnosed following a screening at St James's Hospital in May 2016 after a referral by the woman's dentist.
The lesion was 4.5 centimetres wide, had spread locally and had entered the lymph nodes, the inquest heard. A treatment plan for surgery followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy was put in place.
The woman found the diagnosis very difficult, according to relatives. The inquest heard the woman may have been consuming more alcohol than she disclosed to doctors in the weeks leading up to her death.
Her care plan was discussed on June 22nd when a possible delay was indicated. This was due to a delay in cancer patients getting into St James’s at the time, the court heard. She was taking oxycontin for pain management and complained of numbness on her lip and an increase in the size of the lesion. *
St James’s
Ms Whittle was admitted to St James’s for scheduled surgery on July 30th and her bloods were taken the following day. However, the results revealed her liver was not functioning properly. Doctors formed the impression she’d been taking paracetamol at home along with Lemsip as she did not know there was paracetamol in Lemsip. However, the woman’s daughter said she had never seen the product in the house and her mother did not take it.
Paracetamol as a pain killer was stopped and the antidote to paracetamol overdose was administered, but the woman died of liver failure before any surgery was carried out.
“The only thing that is clear is she had acute liver failure but before that her liver was not functioning normally. There was some other sudden strain on her liver which could have been a combination of alcohol and paracetamol,” Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said.
An autopsy gave the cause of death as acute liver failure due to alcoholic liver disease with cumulative paracetamol use as a possible contributory factor.
The coroner returned a verdict of misadventure.
* This article was amended on March 27th, 2018