A young man who claims he became totally deaf because excessive drugs were administered to him as part of his successful treatment for leukaemia began an action for damages in the High Court yesterday. Mr Niall Gallagher told the court: "I had dreams to fulfil. I wanted it all." After he lost his hearing, he said, "I was praying for my hearing to come back. The emotional loss was great."
Mr Gallagher (25), a student from Ballyhaunis Road, Ballyglass, Charlestown, Co Mayo, is suing the Western Health Board. He claims excessive amounts of the drug Amikacin were administered to him at the hospital where he was treated for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia between March and October 1985.
He alleges that on or around August 1st, 1985, he experienced hearing loss which increased to the extent that he is now completely and permanently deaf. The defence has admitted liability and Mr Justice O'Donovan is being asked to assess damages.
Opening the case yesterday, Mr Harry Whelehan SC, for Mr Gallagher, said he expected the case would last some days.
The issue of liability had been withdrawn on August 8th last he said, adding that his client's treatment involved the excessive use of drugs which had a known capacity to cause deafness, and deafness was manifest in Mr Gallagher in early August 1985. Counsel said his client had no hearing whatsoever in October 1985.
Mr Gallagher had returned home and gone to secondary school in Co Mayo for two years when he was then moved to St Joseph's School for the Deaf in Cabra, Dublin, where he remained for five years. He had completed his Leaving Certificate and one year of an arts degree in UCD but left without sitting his exams. He found it difficult to cope with college life.
Mr Gallagher had later worked with his brother in New York and liked the US, counsel said. He said his client was now attending Roslyn Park college in Dublin.
Counsel said Mr Gallagher's deafness had had a huge inhibiting effect on his progress as a student.
Mr Gallagher was living in a state of complete isolation. His two brothers held good jobs and he could have expected to have had good earnings were it not for his deafness.
Mrs Brid Gallagher said she went to see her son in hospital in early August 1995. He had told her his hearing was going. The doctor said this was a result of the drugs. Within days Niall's hearing had gone, Mrs Gallagher said.
He had had great difficulty adjusting. She said her son had stopped talking at home and lived in a silent world of his own. She said the Western Health Board only agreed to help finance the cost of implant treatment in Manchester after her solicitor wrote to them.
Cross-examined by Mr Michael Carson SC, for the defendants, Mrs Gallagher agreed her son had received good reports while at school in Charlestown for two years after he became deaf. She said it was her view that he was not coping at school and the teachers were just being nice to him. She had moved him to Dublin because he was not coping at school, she said.
She agreed her son had fully recovered from the leukaemia and accepted that was through the efforts of Dr Ernest Egan at University College Hospital.
She had no knowledge about her son being considered for a cochlear implant prior to 1991 or of a decision then that the time was not right for an implant.
She said her son still found it difficult to lip-read and only used his implant when it suited him. He remained angry and frustrated and suffered from depression. The depression had, in her view, started with his deafness. She agreed he had had some counselling and had stopped attending a certain counsellor.
The case continues.