![\"Sharon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0023fe7e-614.jpg\"\/)
\nAnthony Carroll, centre, said he and his family were heartbroken (Photo Collins Courts)<\/p>\n
The family of a 61-year-old woman who died from Covid-19 after repeated transfers between a hospital and a step-down facility has settled a High Court action over her death.<\/p>\n
It is understood the case is the first to come before the courts related to Covid-19 deaths.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Carroll from Mayfield in Cork city was diagnosed with blood cancer after being admitted to the Mercy University Hospital in August 2021.<\/p>\n
In a High Court action it was claimed that neither she nor her family were advised of her immunosuppression and her vulnerability to Covid-19 and that she was exposed to an avoidable risk of infection.<\/p>\n
On 1 September 2021, she was discharged from the Mercy Hospital and transferred to the St Francis Unit nursing home facility.<\/p>\n
The court was told that at the time it was known that patients of nursing home type institutions were extremely vulnerable to Covid-19 infection with poor outcomes in many cases.<\/p>\n
On 7 September she was found to be seriously ill and was transferred back to the hospital but returned to the nursing home three days later.<\/p>\n
The following day she was struggling to breathe and was transferred back to the hospital where she tested positive for Covid-19. She was put on a ventilator and died on 1 October 2021.<\/p>\n
\nAnthony Carroll, centre, said he and his family were heartbroken (Photo Collins Courts)<\/p>\n
It was claimed she had been exposed to the avoidable risk of infection with repeated transfers between the Mercy University Hospital, Cork and St Francis Unit, Baker\u2019s Road, Gurranbraher, Cork.<\/p>\n
It was further alleged that Ms Carroll had been discharged from the Mercy University Hospital without first confirming that the nursing home facility was a suitable and safe facility offering at least the same level of protection from Covid 19 infection as the hospital.<\/p>\n
All of the claims were denied and the case against the hospital and the HSE was settled without admission of liability.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, Ms Carroll\u2019s husband Anthony Carroll said he and his family were heartbroken.<\/p>\n
He said his wife was “the best person in the world” and lived for her family, children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n
The family had hesitantly brought the case and did so in memory of his wife.<\/p>\n
“We felt this was the only action we could take, he said recalling that window visits to his wife were “absolutely horrendous” when she was in the nursing home.<\/p>\n
“The window visits were terrible and soul destroying. Betty was so near and yet so far,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are so heartbroken and another four weeks of having to sit in court and listen to arguments would have been too much for us,” he said.<\/p>\n
He added: “We hope that our family can now live in honour of Betty and in memory of Betty.”<\/p>\n
Noting the settlement and the division of the statutory \u20ac35,000 mental distress payment, Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds expressed her condolences to the Carroll family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a 61-year-old woman who died from Covid-19 after repeated transfers between a hospital and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-327663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}