A SETTLEMENT has been reached over the cost of care arrangements for an award winning part-time opera singer who has been left severely disabled as a result of medical negligence.
Elaine Lennon (36) was awarded an interim payment of €2.39 million damages last week after a hospital and a GP failed to properly diagnose the cause of headaches which turned out to be an abscess on her brain.
The HSE, as operator of the hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda, and Dr Patrick Ó Mathúna, a general practitioner in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, admitted liability in the case.
Ms Lennon is now confined to a wheelchair, is only able to speak in a whisper and lives in a nursing home away from her partner and her child, the High Court heard.
The issue of future care costs, until a new system of periodic payments in such cases is introduced in the next two years, was left over until yesterday by Mr Justice John Quirke.
The HSE contested the level of payments being sought for Ms Lennon’s care until the judge was told her lawyers wanted her to be brought in to give evidence in the matter.
When Ms Lennon was brought into court, Adrienne Egan SC, said it had been agreed that a payment of €75,000 would be made to cover the cost of transition from the nursing home to the care of Ms Lennon’s family, plus €13,500 a month to cover the costs of carers for the next two years.
Approving this, Mr Justice Quirke told Ms Lennon he would see her again within two years “and I hope to hear you singing again”.
He said he would have loved to have heard her singing and was told she had made a CD.
Smiling broadly, Ms Lennon replied in a faint voice she would love to go to the opera again. “I used to sing all the time,” she said.