SWINE FLU may have contributed to the death of a four-year-old Co Wexford boy in Temple Street children’s hospital last Friday.
Results of a postmortem examination carried out on Mikey Connors from Coolnacon, Clonroche, Co Wexford, are still being awaited, but his family say staff at Temple Street hospital in Dublin told them that swine flu may have been a factor in his death.
He died last Friday evening and was laid to rest yesterday. He had been transferred from Wexford General Hospital late last Thursday night after his condition worsened. Mikey was the son of Paddy and Kitty Connors and he has one younger brother.
His uncle Larry said Mikey had been in great health until last week, but had an underlying condition from when he was an infant that would have made him vulnerable to swine flu. When he was 10 weeks old, he had problems with his liver. He made a good recovery and regained his health as he grew up.
Regular check-ups at Crumlin children’s hospital confirmed the lively little boy was in good health.
However, he became ill recently and his uncle said the family believed he died after contracting swine flu.
He said Mikey received a swine flu vaccination last year, but it may not have been enough. “We think it was a flu that killed him, possibly swine flu,” said Mr Connors.
He said doctors at Wexford General Hospital could not confirm that Mikey had swine flu, but a member of staff at Temple Street later indicated to them that the flu may have contributed to his death.
A postmortem examination has been carried out, but the results will not be available for some time. A HSE spokesman said he could not comment specifically on the death of Mikey Connors.
“It can take some time for a death to be confirmed as a H1N1 death as laboratory tests may be required. Ultimately it is not until H1N1 appears on the formal death cert that it can be confirmed as a swine flu death,” said the HSE spokesman.
He confirmed that influenza activity in the southeast region is continuing to increase and the predominant flu virus this year is H1N1, or swine flu, but added that this was in line with the trend being observed nationally.
The Royal College of Surgeons yesterday warned that “the doubling of the number of new cases of swine flu in the past week at a time of unprecedented numbers of patients on trolleys and chairs awaiting hospital admission in the country’s emergency departments is a cause for very grave concern”.
“It is inevitable that cross-infection with the H1N1 virus will occur in the country’s overcrowded emergency departments where the basic facilities to isolate patients with this condition do not exist and excessive numbers of ill patients, many of whom are in the high-risk groups for adverse outcomes from H1N1 infection, are cohorted together,” the statement said.
The Royal College of Surgeonshas called on Minister for Health Mary Harney and the HSE “to immediately mandate the removal of admitted inpatients from the country’s emergency departments so that the risks of this and other contagious diseases are minimised”.